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The Importance of Identifying Excavation Site Hazards

The Importance of Identifying Excavation Site Hazards
Firstly, excavations can be defined as any cavity, depression, man-made cut or trench in the earth's surface, that's been formed by earth removal. An OSHA construction safety course will tell you that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, does not make any distinction, when it comes to the depth of the excavation site. Trenches on the other hand, may be defined as, narrow excavations, that are made below the surface of the ground. In other words, the depth of a trench is greater than its width.

The OSHA construction course, helps workers, employees and employers understand that every organization or company ought to comply with the OSHA standards, that are related to excavations, particularly, standard 1926.650.
Excavation site hazards can only be identified when the following steps are followed:

1.Prior to Excavation or Trenching: The Departmental supervisors firstly, need to identify any buried utilities. They then need to safeguard all surface encumbrances that are located at the site. Finally, at each site there must be at least one competent person.

2.The process of excavation: Trench shoring and trench jacks shall be on the site before any excavation begins. No one shall enter excavations that are four feet or more in depth, without having some sort of shoring in place.

3.Inspections: A competent person must make daily inspections of the excavation sites. But if evidence of a situation that could result in a possible cave-in is found, then every exposed employee must be evacuated immediately.

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