Goldenboy
June 18th, 2008, 02:32 AM
Get the whole story here with pictures (http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080408/GPG0101/80408123/1978)
Dorner Inc., the Luxemburg contractor working at the site of the explosion that destroyed First Baptist Church in Oconomowoc last week, followed proper safety procedures before the blast, according to an attorney speaking on the company’s behalf.
A natural gas leak apparently caused the April 2 explosion after a Dorner backhoe operator unearthed what appeared to be an abandoned gas line, according to published reports.
Dorner was hired by the state Department of Transportation to install a sewer line and do road work in downtown Oconomowoc.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the blast, which also destroyed two nearby homes. Damage was estimated at $1 million. No one has blamed Dorner for anything.
The old gas line was not marked by Diggers Hotline, said Jodi Arndt, an attorney with Liebmann, Conway and Olejniczak in Green Bay. Dorner workers immediately called We Energies to notify them of a gas smell, she said.
A We Energies crew arrived at the scene within 10 minutes, Arndt said, and its representative did not know the pipe was there. Arndt said the gas line appeared to have been abandoned in 1972 and was not on the utility’s maps.
Brian Manthey, a We Energies spokesman, said he had not heard that Diggers Hotline had not located the line or that the utility thought the line was abandoned.
“As soon as they came across an abandoned pipe, they should have called us to notify us,” Manthey said. “They did not call us until after the pipe was exposed and they had been digging around it.”
Manthey said We Energies could have tested the pipe to see whether there was gas in the line. He said any time crews encounter old pipes that may not be on the maps that Diggers Hotline uses, they should immediately call the utility rather than continuing to dig around the pipe, Manthey said.
The Oconomowoc pipe, he said, already was exposed when the We Energies representative arrived on the scene.
We Energies tried to determine where the gas leak was coming from, but the church exploded 56 minutes later.
No one was in the church at the time of the blast, but one We Energies employee, Ross Phillips, was hospitalized with a head injury. He was released from a hospital five days after the blast, Manthey said.
Six other people, including one Dorner employee, also were treated for injuries and released.
The state Division of Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have not yet released the results of the investigation, but reports of Dorner’s prior safety violations immediately surfaced.
Dorner has had 44 violations and paid more than $260,000 in fines since 1999, according to online records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited by The Associated Press.
“When you look at some of the violations they’ve had in the past, we do consider some of them significant,” said Scott Allen, a spokesman with the U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA.
Arndt sees it differently.
“Many of those violations were dismissed and there were no injuries, fatalities or threats to public safety,” she said. “Dorner’s worker’s compensation claims are lower than average.”
Dorner Inc., the Luxemburg contractor working at the site of the explosion that destroyed First Baptist Church in Oconomowoc last week, followed proper safety procedures before the blast, according to an attorney speaking on the company’s behalf.
A natural gas leak apparently caused the April 2 explosion after a Dorner backhoe operator unearthed what appeared to be an abandoned gas line, according to published reports.
Dorner was hired by the state Department of Transportation to install a sewer line and do road work in downtown Oconomowoc.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the blast, which also destroyed two nearby homes. Damage was estimated at $1 million. No one has blamed Dorner for anything.
The old gas line was not marked by Diggers Hotline, said Jodi Arndt, an attorney with Liebmann, Conway and Olejniczak in Green Bay. Dorner workers immediately called We Energies to notify them of a gas smell, she said.
A We Energies crew arrived at the scene within 10 minutes, Arndt said, and its representative did not know the pipe was there. Arndt said the gas line appeared to have been abandoned in 1972 and was not on the utility’s maps.
Brian Manthey, a We Energies spokesman, said he had not heard that Diggers Hotline had not located the line or that the utility thought the line was abandoned.
“As soon as they came across an abandoned pipe, they should have called us to notify us,” Manthey said. “They did not call us until after the pipe was exposed and they had been digging around it.”
Manthey said We Energies could have tested the pipe to see whether there was gas in the line. He said any time crews encounter old pipes that may not be on the maps that Diggers Hotline uses, they should immediately call the utility rather than continuing to dig around the pipe, Manthey said.
The Oconomowoc pipe, he said, already was exposed when the We Energies representative arrived on the scene.
We Energies tried to determine where the gas leak was coming from, but the church exploded 56 minutes later.
No one was in the church at the time of the blast, but one We Energies employee, Ross Phillips, was hospitalized with a head injury. He was released from a hospital five days after the blast, Manthey said.
Six other people, including one Dorner employee, also were treated for injuries and released.
The state Division of Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have not yet released the results of the investigation, but reports of Dorner’s prior safety violations immediately surfaced.
Dorner has had 44 violations and paid more than $260,000 in fines since 1999, according to online records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited by The Associated Press.
“When you look at some of the violations they’ve had in the past, we do consider some of them significant,” said Scott Allen, a spokesman with the U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA.
Arndt sees it differently.
“Many of those violations were dismissed and there were no injuries, fatalities or threats to public safety,” she said. “Dorner’s worker’s compensation claims are lower than average.”