Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Safety has been the mainstay of my last couple of weeks.  Whilst hierarchical eye-brows were being raised at the photos I continually produced showing a lack of grip of PPE on site by the SSHO, I did some more digging into the site safety.  What was initially a little thread pull, turned into a set of pants falling down around the ankles!

Grouting about tie backs (before eye-pro!)

Following installation of the walings and allowing a week for the grout to cure, we have just completed the pull testing on the anchors at 133% of design load.  On a site visit to observe the installation of the soil anchors and grouting, I was again hit by sub-contractors without eye-pro, some without high-vis, and others with no hard-hats.  As mentioned in previous blogs you may have realized my frustrations at the inability of the QC manager who is double hatted as the site safety officer (SSHO) – hence my decision to ramp it up a gear as my initial hand-holding and constant on the spot rectification clearly handn’t worked.  Safety clearly wasn’t in the psyche of the SSHO nor was the understanding of documentation, briefing or indoctrination.  I enquired from the operators as to whether they had safety briefs upon arrival on site – the answer all round was ‘no’.  Further questioning turned up no hot works permit for welding (as per USACE regs), no accessible first aid kits or knowledge of their contents, no eye wash, no material specs on hand, no accessible emergency plan with routes to hospital etc etc…it went from bad to worse.  Upon my return to the office and back briefing the Area Engineer and H&S coordinator, I immediately drafted a dismissal letter to the contractor’s CEO for removal of the SSHO.  Somehow the CEO later managed to calm down our Area Engineer, by the promise of a rectification plan within 72-hours and discipline of the SSHO.

The rectification plan has been pretty thorough with the additional intent of bringing a 3rd party to conduct an independent safety audit.  The QC has improved dramatically, with the QC manager for the first time intently conducting 3-phase (prep, initial and final) briefings and inspections correctly and with all involved rather than on the back of a fag packet and solely him and the foreman present. I tend to find that safety goes hand in hand with the QC as I would suggest good safety is a function of sound, comprehensive QC.   However, my safety ‘feelers’ remain alert so I have gone through the Accident prevention plan (APP) with a fine tooth comb as it is only the risk assessments and CoC diagrams that have been updated since the first 2 phases of the project that were completed last year.  What could very well be a scene from Monty Python, was when the USACE H&S manager decided to check the emergency contact numbers in the APP, as they curiously were not 911?? The telephone answer was: ‘’Hey, this is Misty’s bar’’..once the H&S guy had picked himself up from the floor, he managed to do some further enquiry to realise that till not so long ago the bar was the manned telephone for any out of hours fire emergencies as Danville’s fire service was a volunteer service (who presumable were permanently in the bar??).  It wasn’t still the case, cue more knuckle rapping.  Needless to say the contractor’s rating will be rock-bottom at the end of the construction project.

So, questions I’ve been asking:

• Why did we approve this SSHO, when his CV shows no safety management experience on it other than a 30-hour online course? (Answer:  there isn’t answer; we dropped a ball and let it pass under our nose a long time ago!)
• How did this contractor win this contract when it is becoming apparent that they have minimal experience working with USACE (other than a single roof job), no experience working with levee systems and it is becoming clear they are purely a management layer for gaining works and then subcontracting everything out…I also have my assumptions that the APP was written by an external party, as supposedly the SSHO on my site is the contractor’s corporate director of safety…he doesn’t even follow his own APP rules nevermind USACE’s. (Answer: this project was put out to bid amongst ‘small businesses’ – those with an annual income less than $25.5mill.  Tender evaluation for such businesses are done by contracting division in Baltimore head office and the dept deals with over $1bill of projects annually…I therefore get the impression that projects such as mine are fast-tracked and minimal resources are allocated to the technical and managerial evaluation boards – I hope to explore this a bit more when in Baltimore for Phase 3)

Negotiations and change orders have now been put to bed for the north end shoring system, the damaged drainage pipe running through the middle of the site, as well as me sitting down with the sub-contractors designers to discuss new site dewatering systems – the longitudinal extent of the excavation was further out than originally thought, especially with the heightened water levels (see pink flagged pegs in river).  Instead of the dike system in front of the excavation, we have planned to dam the water upstream with jersey barriers, sandbags and plastic sheeting, whilst pumping the water around the site in addition to the smaller dewatering system within the excavation area.  Other options were to change the size of rock armour being used to allow for a steeper slope thus a tighter toe.  A lot of our ideas are hamstrung by Public Law 84 for disaster operations, Pennsylvania’s dept of environment permitting and the timeline for which dewatering is intended to take place.

Looking south through the site; note the stakes in the river showing extent of excavation hence the need for a rethink on the dewatering plan

Excavation down to approx 10ft; wales now attached awaiting tie back performance testing.

In other news, Emily and I were kindly given tickets to a pre-season NFL games by a fellow USACE employee for last Saurday evening – what an experience…USA testosterone in all its grandeur!