Fall 2005 - Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association

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“We mandated a condition of employment that the foreman does a five-minute safety talk once a week with his crew. That shows commitment from the foreman. He goes over safety topics that are relevant. We reinforce the formal training through the foreman’s safety talks,” LaFontaine said. Tailgate topics are also available from CSAO. Furthermore, he said that every time any safety training is done, the employees receive awareness training on backup procedures. Struck-by accidents have now replaced electrocution as the second leading cause of death in construction. Even worse, every struck-by accident is preventable, and safety proponents want to make sure workers and supervisors are taking the extra precautions necessary. operator can see them, and in big machines and in trucks there are blind spots. It is a real priority for us to train our people to be aware of the blind spot, to make sure they catch the operator’s attention and let him/her know where they are,” he said. One of the biggest issues in preventing struck-by accidents is complacency. LaFontaine said that workers are wearing their safety vests all the time and this gives them a false sense of security because they assume the equipment operator should see them. Legally, all dump trucks must have backup beepers, and LaFontaine said that Dufferin Construction uses them on all their equipment. However, with equipment backing up often, he said the backup beepers become white noise – people tend to tune them out because they hear them all day long. The solution, LaFontaine said, is to have drive throughs so that trucks don’t have to reverse, and to separate workers from the machinery whenever possible. In fact, Enzo Garritano, the Manager of Technical Service and Quality Assurance for the Construction Safety Association of Ontario (CSAO), said that having drive-throughs whenever possible is the law. “The requirements are all outlined in the Regulations for Construction Projects,” he said, “If all parties are following the requirements, we lower the risk of accidents greatly.” Dufferin Construction has now gone beyond the minimum requirements and has also developed a backup permit system. “It is a checklist for a supervisor to make sure that all the elements of the back up program are in place. They have to ensure backup beepers are working, that the signal person is in place and is trained, and ensure we have a drive-through operation wherever possible,” LaFontaine said. Depending on the scope of the work the permit could be good for a day or for a week. As well, Dufferin promotes continuous formal training and informal training through tailgate meetings. 18 • The Undergrounder /Fall 2005 Having the safety features in good working order is important and LaFontaine said companies should be reminded to have a program to make sure the backup beepers are working. “There are just two thin wires making the backup beeper work and especially with the heavy work these machine perform, the wires can corrode and break off,” he explained. For those organizations that do not have enough inhouse resources, the CSAO provides an excellent training program called Traffic Control and Backing Up. LaFontaine recommends all workers receive this training. The training is available in picture form so it can transcend any language barriers. Nonetheless, CSAO has also translated it into Portuguese and Italian. LaFontaine said a foreman can be used as an interpreter to make sure there are no language issues. LaFontaine said that safety programs are the most effective when they have support at all levels of the organization. “Superintendents and company owners need to ‘walk the walk’. When you get out of your vehicle, the hard hat and safety vest should go on immediately. They need to demand excellence in health and safety as a condition of employment. The workers will see that and there will be a better safety culture out in the field,” he said. “Our goal as an association and an industry has to be zero injuries, zero accidents and it is attainable but not through good luck, it has to be through good management,” LaFontaine said. ■
One Call Legislation Using legislation to back-up the One- Call procedures only makes sense and the OSWCA is working hard to make this happen. While pushing through any form of legislation is a difficult task, One-Call legislation has its own challenges – including the separation of provincial and federal jurisdictions. Last year, the Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance (ORCGA) developed a Best Practices Guide modelled on a similar document developed by the Common Ground Alliance in the US. However, when comparing the two guides, one major difference is that every state in the US has some form of One-Call legislation, whereas that is absent in Canadian jurisdictions. US legislation covers all underground infrastructure. In Canada, we run into difficulties because telecoms are federally regu- Facing challenges By Cheryl Rego Zechner said that after a certain point, the task force has to give the issue up to provincial legislators and urge them to move it through. “One of the optimistic elements is that we are trying to approach the Ontario government on a consensus basis by having a broad representation of stakeholders who agree to the proposed legislation and thereby reduce the likelihood of opposition,” he said. lated through the CRTC and the rest of the underground utilities are provincially regulated. Frank Zechner, an independent legal practitioner who assists OSWCA on various matters, said that One-Call legislation would promote public safety and worker safety, protect underground plant and reduce overall costs to the province. He said provincial laws first need to be put in order and then we can deal with federal-provincial jurisdiction issues. “In Ontario we have a regulatory gap,” he said. “We have legislation through the Energy Act and now under TSSA [Technical Standards Safety Authority] for people to require a locate and for gas companies to respond to locate. In November 2004, we finally got a similar regulation in place for the electrical distributors. The Occupational Health and Safety Act requires excavators to obtain locates and arguably requires utilities to respond but there is not one standard legislation that we feel is adequate to regulate One Call procedures.” Zechner said that one stumbling block is that telecoms are federally regulated through the CRTC and are immune to certain provincial legislation. “The hope is that once we develop a bill in Ontario, we might initiate a dialogue with the CRTC and other federal bodies and have them adopt our law as one of their requirements or to pass parallel legislation,” he said. In 2002, the National Telecommunications Damage Prevention Council (NTDPC) in the US developed a model One Call bill for US state legislation. The ORCGA One- The Undergrounder / Fall 2005 • 19
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Page 4 and 5: Environmentally Conscious... Like y
Page 7 and 8: Message from Kathleen Grimes, Presi
Page 9 and 10: From Lloyd Ferguson’s bulldog app
Page 11 and 12: ANNOUNCEMENTS: WATERWORKS CORPORATI
Page 13 and 14: Minister Caplan making the OIPC ann
Page 15 and 16: ORCGA Founded just two years ago, t
Page 17: “Struck-By” Accidents Superinte
Page 21 and 22: Personals. Tall, grey, and handsome
Page 23 and 24: aging the work. The course itself p
Page 25 and 26: municipal and environmental organiz
Page 27 and 28: MEMBER PROFILE: Kovacs Sand & Grave
Page 29 and 30: Easy to install, corrosion resistan
Page 31 and 32: CSA G401 BNQ 3311-100 ASTM A929 Gal

Fall 2005 - Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association

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