Ontario Construction News staff writer
Coco Paving pleaded guilty in provincial offences court on Nov. 7 and was fined $50,000 for a workplace accident.
According to a court bulletin released by the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development, Coco Paving Inc. was retained by the Regional Municipality of Durham to supply and install a sanitary forcemain, which is an underground waste pipe used to move waste to a sewage plant.
On Feb. 8, 2018, a Coco employee was working at the project on the northwest corner of Simcoe and Kellett Streets in Port Perry. The worker was in the process of retrieving material with an excavator.
A co-worker was working at connecting a section of forcemain to the excavator so that it could be moved. After the material was connected, the excavator operator raised the boom of the excavator, causing the it to contact overhead energized conductors. No one was injured.
Under the Health and Safety Act with the Ministry of Labour, the company was required to have a spotter present to act as a signaller for the excavator. On the day before the incident (February 7) the employer assigned a signaller or “spotter” to assist around overhead energized conductors. However, on Feb. 8 no signaller or “spotter” was present to observe the movements of the excavator.
Following a guilty plea, Coco Paving Inc., was fined $50,000 in provincial offences court in Whitby by Justice of the Peace John MacDonald; Crown Counsel Indira Stewart. The court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime. The company has three prior health and safety convictions, two of them fatalities; one of the convictions is currently under appeal.