After a shipping container weighing more than four tons fell and struck an employee at a jobsite near Tuscaloosa, Ballard Contractors Inc., a Moundville, Alabama, concrete contractor, entered into an informal settlement agreement with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to resolve citations and penalties, the agency announced July 9.  

OSHA investigators learned that the employee was guiding an 8,575-pound shipping container into place when one of the chains used to lift the box snapped. The agency determined that the company violated federal safety and health regulations by doing the following: 

• Failing to ensure rigging equipment was rated properly to handle the container’s weight; 
• Permitting an employee to work near or beneath a moving load while moving a container;
• Allowing workers to use steel chain slings and a four-way chain lift without identification plates attached or load ratings indicated; 
• Failing to perform periodic inspections of slings; and 
• Not ensuring fall protection was in place while workers connected rigging equipment to an overhead crane at heights of 11 feet.

The employer received citations for eight violations related to its failures to protect workers from fall, struck-by, and crushed-by hazards. Falls, caught-in/-between, and struck-by hazards are three of the construction industry’s “fatal four” safety hazards. The fourth hazard is electrocution.

“Ballard Contractors failed in its legal responsibility to provide its employees with a safe work environment, especially when it comes to dealing with the serious dangers of handling heavy loads,” Joel Batiz, OSHA’s Birmingham, Alabama, area office director, said in an agency statement. “OSHA standards exist to help prevent tragedies such as this from occurring. Employers must recognize their duty to ensure the safety of their employees.”

Houston-area tank cleaning contractor cited for new fatality

Qualawash Holdings LLC, a La Porte, Texas, tank cleaning company operating as Quala Services LLC, faces $810,703 in OSHA fines following another employee’s death, the agency announced July 8. 

After two workers succumbed to fumes while cleaning inside a tanker truck in November 2019, OSHA cited the employer for the same violations in June 2020. On December 23, 2023, the wife and son of an employee grew concerned when he didn’t return after his shift. The worker was found later that day unresponsive.

Following the December 2023 fatality, the agency determined that the employer failed to ensure atmospheric testing was done inside the tank before allowing the 53-year-old employee to enter it. The agency cited the company, whose employees clean tankers used to transport hazardous wastes, with eight repeat violations.

OSHA also cited Quala Services with seven serious violations for:

• Failing to implement measures to prevent unauthorized entry into a permit-required confined space;
• Not providing an attendant while employees entered permit-required confined spaces;
• Numerous failures related to the confined-space entry permit, including not identifying the authorized duration of entry, which rescue and emergency services should be summoned in a workplace emergency, and how to summon emergency services;
• Failing to specify personal protective, rescue, and communications equipment and alarm systems;
• Overexposing employees to carbon monoxide; and
• Not protecting conductors that entered an electrical panel box from abrasions and leaving an electrical outlet without a cover plate.

“Had Quala Services acted responsibly and made the safety reforms as required in 2020, another employee would not have lost their life,” Larissa Ipsen, OSHA’s Houston area office director, said in a statement.