It took an engineer about two-and-a-half hours to certify it was safe for workers to enter the unsupported vertical trench in North Burnaby where 28-year-old pipe layer Jeff Caron later died when a retaining wall collapsed on him in October 2012, according to testimony at the trial of his former employer and foreman last week.
J. Cote and Son Excavating Ltd. is on trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver for criminal negligence causing death and criminal negligence causing injury for the death of Caron and the injury of his co-worker Thomas Richer.
Foreman David Green faces those charges and the additional charge of manslaughter.
Both pleaded not guilty at the beginning of their trial last month.
'Safe for workers to enter'
Caron died of "multiple blunt force injuries," including a ruptured aorta that caused massive internal bleeding, according to Dr. Carol Lee, a forensic pathologist who testified last week.
While he was working for J. Cote on a City of Burnaby sewer replacement project in the lane behind Edinburgh Street on Oct. 11, 2012, a retaining wall had collapsed onto his back, crushing him against a piece of machinery, according to other witnesses.
Multiple witnesses have told the court there was no shoring box or cage supporting the vertical trench Caron and Richer were working in at the time.
Nine days before the collapse, geotechnical engineer Edward Yip, the principal consultant at Earthbitat Engineering Inc., had issued J. Cote a certificate saying the trench was "safe for workers to enter" without shoring or sloping as long as certain conditions were met.
The certificate was based on a two-and-a-half hour field inspection on Oct. 2, 2012 of soil and groundwater conditions at a four-metre deep test hole at the corner of Gilmore Avenue and the Edinburgh lane but did not include an inspection of structures close to the project route, according to Yip's testimony last week.
WorkSafeBC requires contractors to have engineering certificates for trenches four feet or deeper if they aren't supported by shoring boxes or sloped to about 53 degrees to prevent collapse, according to Yip.
He said he made the certificate for the Edinburgh project valid for 14 days.
"Mr. David Green had said on many occasions my service costs his company a lot of money, so he wanted a slightly longer certification because in case of delay and holiday and weekends," Yip told the court.
Yip's certificate said it was valid unless J. Cote encountered "adverse changes" in soil or groundwater conditions as the project moved along.
If that happened, J. Cote was required to get an engineer to re-certify the trench unless the company started using shoring or sloping, according to Yip.
He said J. Cote didn't call him again until after the accident.
'Nobody does it'
Yip's certificate also directed J. Cote to use "spot shoring' if the company encountered "unstable spots" in the trench sidewalls.
Under questioning from Crown prosecutor Louisa Winn, Yip said unstable spots could include spots with loose, soft soil.
When pressed for other examples of what he meant by unstable spots, Yip said there were also WorkSafe regulations requiring "nearby hazards," including retaining walls, to be "inspected and certified specifically."
But Yip said it was "impossible" with "so many" existing structures near the excavation to determine accurately how each was built and what was underneath them because they were on private property.
"Nobody does it," he said.
But Yip's testimony suggested the company did just that after Caron's death.
Yip said WorkSafeBC and the City of Burnaby wouldn't let the company continue on the project until they had an engineer inspect all the other retaining walls and structures close to the trench excavation edge — and J. Cote hired him to do it.
"I was retained to provide the design recommendation for them…for stabilizing, protecting the workers in the trench, shoring, using steel plates and shoring cage," he said.
"Along the route of the sewer construction, we basically go and check and look at every wall to discover the design to make sure there won't be a second failure."
Engineer recommended shoring trench
Yip's wasn't the only engineering report prepared for the trench.
Among the stacks documents introduced into evidence at the trial so far was another report prepared for the city's prime consultant on the job, Vector Engineering.
During the project's design phase, a subconsultant, EXP, hand-dug test holes along the laneway and prepared recommendations based on the soil conditions they revealed, according to EXP engineer Bill Weiss who was in the witness box last week.
One of the recommendations in the report was that, if the trench was dug vertically instead of sloped, "appropriate trench shoring/bracing methods should be employed such as standard trench boxes, meeting requirements of WorkSafe and other applicable authorities."
The report was not included in the documents given to companies bidding on the project, according to Geoff Tsuyuki, a retired City of Burnaby project manager, who also testified last week.
But Tsuyuki said the bid documents made clear a geotechnical report had been done and it was available for viewing at city hall upon request.
Tsuyuki told the court it was up to the contractor to decide how to dig the trench, but he didn't see any shoring used at the Edinburgh trench before the fatal accident.
And just months after Caron's death, he said he visited another sewer replacement project J. Cote and Green were doing for the city and didn't see shoring boxes in use there either.
"They had an excavation open, a fairly deep and wide excavation," Tsuyuki said. "They were putting pipes in the ground, and there was, I think, a couple of pipe layers in the trench."
J. Cote sued the city for extra costs after the fatal wall collapse, according to Tsuyuki.
He said the company asked for an additional $800,000, and the issue was eventually settled before going to trial.
J. Cote was the prime contractor on the Edinburgh project and therefore responsible for worker safety at the site under WorkSafeBC regulations, according to Tsuyuki.
Answering questions from Winn, Tsuyuki pointed to sections in the contract between the city and J. Cote that stated the prime contractor's responsibility for site safety.
Tsuyuki said the point was reiterated at a pre-construction meeting.
Yip's testimony and cross-examination was expected to continue Monday.
Lawyers for J. Cote and David Green have not yet presented their defence.
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