Trenching and Excavation Safety
Heavy Equipment News, November 2002
By Robert Baldwin, Safety Resources, Inc.
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Is OSHA’s competent person standard a common sense
guideline or a common mistake? Sure you know how to dig, locate the utilities,
check the grade elevations, review the excavation plan, determine final depth,
gas up the backhoe and go. You’ve been doing this for 20 years or more; you are
sure you are a competent person. Well, maybe not according to OSHA.
To be honest, the OSHA regulations themselves never get our
employees home safe at the end of the day. If they did, then more than 1,000
construction workers wouldn’t die every year working to make a paycheck.
The regulations give us guidelines for thinking about the
hazards on our construction sites and something of a game plan for working
safely. Many times the response from experienced people in construction is “what
the heck does OSHA know? They’re not here looking at this pile of dirt.” Safety
is often thought of as “just common sense.”
It might surprise even the old-timers just how much common
sense is in the OSHA regulations. There are several instances in the OSHA
regulations where, if read carefully, it is apparent that OSHA concedes the
“common sense” of managing safe work conditions to those who actually know the
detail of the work. An excellent example is this issue of competence.
In OSHA’s Construction Safety standards (Subpart P,
29CFR1926.651(k)(1and2)) the regulations require that excavations be inspected
daily by a competent person. This section, if interpreted by the “common sense”
way of thinking, means: Some designated, experienced and knowledgeable person
needs to inspect the excavation every day to make sure the excavation is safe
and won’t cave in. And if any shoring or sloping safety approaches are being
used, they should be appropriate for the conditions. This is similar to OSHA
saying, “Okay, you know what you are doing, make it safe.”
Making sure that contractors are honest about what they
call a “competent person” is the real common sense rule. OSHA defines a
competent person as: “one who is capable of identifying existing and predictable
hazards ... and has the authorization to take prompt corrective measures to
eliminate them.” The key point is authority. Our people may know all there is to
know about digging safely, but if they are not empowered to make on-site changes
where and when they are needed, they can’t be called competent persons. Without
the authority to act before the gas line is ruptured or the trench caves in,
their knowledge isn’t enough to save lives.