The company holding a $44 million Port of Longview construction contract was fined more than $170,000 by state regulators and will be placed on a "Severe Violators" list following its investigation into a Woodland job site in which a 1-1/2 ton piece of equipment reportedly crushed a construction worker.
Rotschy Inc. of Vancouver was fined a total of $170,136 for a litany of violations — including ones classified as "willful serious," "repeat serious" and "serious" — stemming from the June 2 incident at a construction site for houses outside Woodland city limits in the 1700 block of Lewis River Road.
A trench worker had been giving hand signals to an excavator operator when the roughly 3,000 pound bucket arm fell off the arm of the excavator at about 8:30 a.m. the morning of June 3, according to a release issued Wednesday by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries.
Rotschy's safety record had been a point of scrutiny among union labor leaders since at least January of this year, when the Port of Longview voted 2-1 to select the non-union construction contractor for the port's $44 million Industrial Rail Corridor Expansion Project, but the Woodland incident prompted the port to temporarily halt construction of its Industrial Rail Corridor Expansion Project earlier this summer before hiring an independent safety consultant and revisions to the port's health and safety plan.
Investigators found that an important safety latch designed to prevent the excavator's bucket from falling was missing. Upon later investigation, investigators found the safeguard was missing from 13 others across Rotschy's fleet.
The involved excavator — as well as another one on the job site — was equipped with what's known as a "quick coupler" designed to make it possible for operators to swap attachments without leaving the cab.
Craig Blackwood, assistant director for L&I's Division of Occupational Safety and Health, stated in the release that is was highly unusual for the "vital safety latch" to be missing.
"These actions demonstrate a blatant disregard for the rules designed to keep workers safe," Blackwood said. "This young man's life will be forever impacted by this incident that was entirely preventable."
The Woodland area incident separately prompted another investigation that culminated in a $13,770 fine in November, according to an earlier news report.
