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Sunday, June 1, 2025

OSHA takes WASA to court; finds 6 HSE breaches after jobsite death

by

Radhica De Silva
356 days ago
20240610

Eight months fol­low­ing Kern Et­tiene’s trag­ic death in a trench at a WASA work­site, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty has filed a for­mal com­plaint in the In­dus­tri­al Court against the au­thor­i­ty for six breach­es of the OSH Act af­ter Eti­enne’s ac­ci­dent on Oc­to­ber 22.

OS­HA al­so man­dat­ed a over­haul of WASA’s safe­ty pro­ce­dures af­ter find­ing the breach­es.

WASA has now en­gaged the ser­vices of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny to re­view, au­dit and ad­vise on its process­es to en­sure best prac­tice.

Eti­enne had been a Waste­water Crafts­man. He, along with eight oth­er work­ers, had been per­form­ing work on the sew­er and wa­ter mains at the San Fer­nan­do Li­cens­ing Of­fice Com­pound when the mud from the trench col­lapsed on top of him. His col­leagues fran­ti­cal­ly clawed through the mud to save him but he died on the spot, bleed­ing from his eyes, ears and mouth.

The mat­ter was called for case man­age­ment on June 7, 2024.

The breach­es, though not de­tailed, cen­tred around safe­ty pro­ce­dures and the ex­ec­u­tive of the job it­self.

Yes­ter­day, in a state­ment, WASA con­firmed OS­HA found six breach­es and filed the com­plaint in court.

The au­thor­i­ty said its in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent iden­ti­fied pro­ce­dur­al and safe­ty de­fi­cien­cies in the con­duct and ex­e­cu­tion of the job, and it has been in con­sul­ta­tion with its at­tor­neys to get le­gal di­rec­tion on the mat­ter.

The state­ment said WASA’s Board of Com­mis­sion­ers al­so launched an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion and in­struct­ed the au­thor­i­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive team to take im­me­di­ate steps to en­sure all health and safe­ty process­es and pro­ce­dures were adopt­ed and ad­hered to with­out ex­cep­tion.

WASA said these steps in­clud­ed an im­me­di­ate HSE Safe­ty Stand­down of all WASA crews, dur­ing which the CEO and di­rec­tor of Op­er­a­tions met with all se­nior Op­er­a­tions staff to re­in­force a ze­ro-tol­er­ance stan­dard on safe­ty.

“Re­fresh­er train­ing was pro­vid­ed for all man­agers and crews on the safe­ty pro­ce­dures and pro­to­cols re­gard­ing ex­ca­va­tion and sim­i­lar type work. To en­sure com­pli­ance, ran­dom in­spec­tions are con­duct­ed at op­er­a­tions sites, with ze­ro tol­er­ance for any safe­ty breach,” WASA said.

WASA said it has part­nered with AM­CHAM and the NGC to en­hance ex­ca­va­tion safe­ty com­pe­ten­cy for se­lect­ed staff.

It added it has en­gaged the ser­vices of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny to re­view, au­dit and ad­vise on its process­es to en­sure they are in line with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice.

Moth­er: Why did
WASA have to wait?

Mean­while, Eti­enne’s moth­er, Joyce Grant-Roberts finds the lat­est de­vel­op­ments a bit­ter-sweet re­lief.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at her Em­ba­cadere, San Fer­nan­do home yes­ter­day, Grant-Roberts said while she was re­lieved that safe­ty would be im­proved, her heart was still heavy as noth­ing could bring her son back.

She ques­tioned why WASA had not im­ple­ment­ed prop­er safe­ty mea­sures be­fore.

“Why did WASA have to wait un­til OS­HA in­ves­ti­gate for this to hap­pen? If they had done this be­fore and put safe­ty in place, Kern would still be alive,” she cried.

She said she con­tin­ues to ques­tion WASA’s safe­ty mea­sures.

She said WASA had not in­formed the fam­i­ly about the new de­vel­op­ments which will now be tak­en be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court as OS­HA had filed a for­mal com­plaint against WASA in the In­dus­tri­al Court.

“It seems WASA does not care about us,” she said.

She claimed dur­ing her last con­ver­sa­tion with a se­nior WASA of­fi­cial she was told that the au­thor­i­ty could not have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with her as she had “lawyered up.”

Wip­ing away tears, Grant-Roberts said she did not want any­body to go through the pain of los­ing a loved one in such a hor­rif­ic way.

An au­top­sy done on Eti­enne’s body re­vealed that the weight of the mud had crushed his spine in two places.

“What he went through was not nice. No­body should have to face this,” she said.

Grant-Roberts said Eti­enne’s two daugh­ters—Kiara, 15 and Kimo­ra, age five, were suf­fer­ing with­out their fa­ther who was the sole bread­win­ner.

Ef­forts to con­tact Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les on the mat­ter yes­ter­day proved fu­tile.

 


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