Convicted: Clean Water Works Inc., 1800 Bantree Street, Ottawa, Ontario, a company that provides environmental remediation services such as hazardous waste disposal, tank cleaning, contaminated soils and lagoon cleanings as well as plumbing and sewer rehabilitation services to the residential, commercial, industrial and institutional sectors.
Location: The company’s workplace at 1800 Bantree Street, Ottawa.
Description of Offence: A worker received a permanent critical injury after being caught in a moving conveyor.
Date of Offence: January 18, 2018.
Date of Conviction: May 9, 2019.
Penalty Imposed:
- Following a guilty plea, the company was fined $100,000 by Justice of the Peace Jocelyne St Jean in Ottawa court; Crown Counsel Shantanu Roy.
- The court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
Background:
- A worker employed by Clean Water Works Inc. was assisting with the preparation of a liner designed for sealing leaks in sewer lines.
- The worker was pulled into the pinch point of an in-running nip hazard created by two rollers on a moving conveyor known as the wet-out plant conveyor.
- The worker sustained critical injuries.
- An investigation of the incident by the Ministry of Labour concluded that Clean Water Works Inc. did commit the offence of failing, as an employer, to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 25 of Ontario Regulation 851 (the Industrial Establishments Regulation) were carried out in the workplace. This was contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
- Specifically, Clean Water Works Inc. failed to ensure that the in-running nip hazard on the machine known as the wet-out plant conveyor was guarded by a guard or other device that prevented access to the pinch point.