OSHA finds 2 companies involved in Sun Prairie explosion committed ‘serious’ safety violations

Keely Arthur by Keely Arthur





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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued multiple citations following an investigation into an explosion in Sun Prairie.

The July 10 explosion caused by the improper drilling of a gas line leveled several buildings in down town Sun Prairie and killed volunteer fire Capt. Cory Barr.

#Breakinf OSHA finds 2 companies involved in Sun Prairie explosion committed ‘serious safety violations.’ Bear Communications and VC Tech failed to contact underground utilities owners/drilling hotline before drilling #news3

— Keely Arthur (@news3keely) January 10, 2019

OSHA inspectors determined that Bear Communications and subcontractor VC Tech failed to contact underground utility owners or the local one call system before drilling. Both companies were issued a serious safety violation, and face penalties of $12,934, the maximum allowed.

Abigail Barr, the widow. Cory Barr filed a lawsuit claiming VC Tech, Bear Communications, USIC Locating Services and WEC Energy Group, known as WE Energies, are responsible for Barr’s death in the explosion.

Two other firefighters, Ryan Welch and Greg Pavlik, who were injured in the explosion have filed personal injury lawsuits against the same companies.

Authorities believe miscommunications between utility contractors and subcontractors led to the explosion. A subcontractor in charge of marking where to place fiber-optic communication cables being installed by Verizon dropped out of the project. The new company marking the pavement did not finish locating the underground utilities.

Underground work was also passed on to another subcontractor. The contractor doing work for Verizon told the new subcontractor to move ahead, believe everything thing had been properly marked, it had not.

The new subcontractor then hit the gas line causing the explosion.

A criminal investigation into the matter found no crime was committed.

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