Safety fines
A Powell River diving company was among the companies handed the biggest safety violation penalties by WorkSafeBC last year. Diveco Marine Ltd. was fined $100,000 after one of its divers was fatally injured while diving to recover dead fish from a Marine Harvest Canada fish farm pen at Lochalsh Bay, near Klemtu, on September 12, 2007.
A WorkSafeBC investigation found the company did not have adequate safety procedures for diving operations and failed to provide its workers with the information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety.
Marine Harvest Canada, based in Campbell River, was fined $75,000 in connection with the same incident. According to WorkSafeBC, as the prime contractor of a multiple-employer workplace, the company failed to coordinate the health and safety activities of employers, workers and others at the workplace and it failed to establish and maintain a system to ensure compliance with the Workers Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation.
Western Forest Products Inc. was fined $75,000 following the death of a logger near Gold River in 2008. Two company workers were falling trees within a two tree-length radius of one another. One of the fallers cut down a tree that struck the other faller, inflicting fatal injuries. WorkSafeBC said the firm failed to ensure that its fallers worked the required two tree-length distance from each other and it failed to provide its workers with adequate supervision and instruction.
WorkSafeBC imposed 256 penalties in 2010, totalling over $3 million against employers for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation and the Workers Compensation Act. The fine to Diveco was the second highest of the year. The highest was to Penfolds Roofing Inc. of West Vancouver, which incurred a penalty of $145,046 when two of its workers were on a roof between 4.5 metres (15 feet) and six metres (19 feet) above grade without using any form of fall protection. According to WorkSafeBC, this was a repeated violation of the fall protection requirements as well as the requirement to provide workers with the information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure their safety.
“WorkSafeBC penalizes employers who have not been motivated by other means to comply with their responsibility to ensure their workplaces are healthy and safe,” said Donna Wilson, vice president of the Industry Services and Sustainability Division. “A penalty is not imposed if an employer is found to have taken all reasonable steps to prevent circumstances that involve violations that can lead to serious injury or death.”
WorkSafeBC officers include investigations officers who investigate fatal and serious workplace health and safety incidents and occupational safety and hygiene officers who conduct inspections, respond to incidents reported to WorkSafeBC and provide consultation and education to help achieve compliance.
No hydro hike
A BC Hydro rate hike set to take effect on April 1 has been suspended. BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) has ruled that the interim rate increase of nearly 10 per cent will not go ahead as planned.
The regulator had approved the new rates for Hydro’s customers two weeks ago, but reconsidered when BC Hydro admitted that a government review would result in a lower increase.
Documents posted on the BCUC website say that the utility’s requested 9.73-per-cent annual increase “may well be too high.”
“Although the approved rate increase is on an interim and refundable basis, the Commission Panel does not believe that this fact justifies ordering a rate increase which is likely to be wrong, and which is not based on the best information available,” the documents state.
Rich Coleman, BC’s energy minister, said that the increases would not be as high as the 10 per cent per year for five years that Hydro had announced March 1.
The utility is seeking average increases of 9.73-per-cent per year over the next three years, which will compound to 32 per cent by the end of 2013/14, to help pay for a $6-billion capital plan to renew and expand its system.
BC Hydro will run an annual deficit of $320 million in 2011/2012, and the utility says this will increase to $1 billion within two years if it does not receive the increase.
The commission will reconsider the utility’s request April 8 while the government and BC Hydro sort out spending priorities.
South harbour floats
City of Powell River council awarded a contract for the assembly of floats for the south harbour expansion project at a recently held special council meeting. MTF Enterprises won the bid at a price of $166,880. With a 10 per cent contingency of $16,688, the total cost of the contract is $183,568.
The city received four bids for the project. MTF was the second lowest price. Staff reported the company with the lowest bid, Westcoast Industrial Ltd. at $129,037, did not have experience or appropriate methodology.
