Walsh: ‘Appropriate’ precautions observed before deadly flooding
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said city inspectors observed adequate safety precautions at a South End job site two days before two men were killed when the trench they were working in was suddenly flooded by a ruptured water main.
The site visit by the Boston Water and Sewer Commission found “appropriate” safety precautions, including proper shoring of trench walls, Walsh told the Herald last night.
“Water and sewer was out there a couple days before the accident and saw that there was shoring there — there was wood shoring there, and some other shoring there on the side,” Walsh said. “I’m not sure what happened on the day of, and why the situation happened the way it happened.”
Walsh added city public works personnel inspected the Dartmouth Street site roughly a week before the Oct. 21 tragedy and also found the trench was properly shored up.
The fire department said in the immediate aftermath of the drownings that a trench box a metal structure used to shore up the trench’s sides — was not found during the effort to excavate the deceased workers.
The new details emerged after a meeting among Walsh and a range of city departments yesterday to discuss the city’s past visits to the site.
The two contractors who perished — Kelvin “Chuck” Mattocks, 53, of Brockton and Robert “Robbie” Higgins, 47, of Warren, R.I. — were working as private contractors for Atlantic Drain Services, Inc., of Roslindale. The company has nearly a decade’s worth of safety violations that have resulted in more than $140,000 in fines by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Both OSHA and the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office are investigating the incident to determine if proper safety precautions were in place and if there was any criminal culpability for the deaths.
Walsh said city inspectors were not on the scene at the time of the accident.
The Dartmouth Street trench work was being done for a private client, not the city.
Despite Atlantic Drain’s track record of safety violations, the city issued it a permit for the work.
Walsh said the law prevents the city from withholding permits for a private job simply due to safety concerns, and said his administration is exploring ways to change the law to allow such considerations moving forward.
“We can’t just arbitrarily deny permits,” he said, “so we’re going to be looking at potential legislative issues, an ability for us to be able to deny permits over safety on private work.”