SaskPower supervisor violated safety procedure and legislation by not redoing formal risk assessment and hazard identification
A Saskatchewan electrical utility worker has been convicted in the electrocution death of a co-worker after he failed to follow hazard assessment procedures when the circumstances of a transmission line repair job changed, the Saskatchewan Provincial Court has ruled.
Kelvin Rowlett was a journeyman power line technician for SaskPower, Saskatchewan’s principal electric utility, for 25 years.
SaskPower had a safety rule book that stipulated “all tasks, assignment and circumstances are assessed to identify hazards and that reasonably practicable measures shall be taken to eliminate, reduce or control those risks.” This included providing hazard analysis or risk assessment before starting any job. If job conditions changed, another assessment had to be made. All SaskPower employees, including Rowlett, received training on the rule book and signed a receipt acknowledging they were familiar with it.
On Dec. 20, 2014, a four-man crew with Rowlett supervising was assigned to repair some high-voltage transmission lines in a remote rural area near Wakaw, Sask. A shield wire between two towers had broken and was hanging in the air. As per normal procedure, the four crew members discussed the job plan and the hazards associated with repairing the broken shield wire at a tailboard meeting. Rowlett documented the meeting on a hazard and risk assessment form, which all four crew members signed.
Job plan changed
The original plan was to rejoin the ends of the broken wire. They identified the major hazard as induction of the current, which could be avoided by good grounding. However, it soon became apparent that the bucket truck couldn’t reach high enough to rejoin the ends of the shield wire above the power lines where the break occurred, so they came up with a new plan.
The crew decided to move the bucket truck to a hill between the two towers where the power lines sagged low enough to be reached. They would also have to work on the shield wire on the ground first — cutting and adding new wire so the wires could be joined at the new location where the truck could reach above the power lines.
The crew members got together again for a tailboard meeting and discussed the new plan. However, they didn’t pull out the hazard and risk assessment form or document the changes to the plan.
One of Rowlett’s fellow crew members, Kleon Swahn, measured the distance from the original location of the truck to the new one and a length of new shield wire was cut from a spool to splice onto the broken wire. Swahn measured where the new cut in the shield wire would be made, which was inside the ground probes on the broken end of the shield wire — meaning the wire could still be conducting energy and needed a jumper cable to be attached to it before a cut could be safely made. However, none of these steps were discussed or documented.
Worker fatality
Swahn picked up the broken end of the shield wire with both his hands while Rowlett taped the wire where the cut was to be made. The shield wire was then cut without a jumper cable placed on it, resulting in current flowing through Swahn. Swahn was electrocuted and died.
Saskatchewan Occupational Health and Safety investigated the fatal incident and determined Rowlett violated The Saskatchewan Employment Act’s occupational health and safety provisions by failing to take proper safety precautions. He was charged with not following SaskPower safety rule book procedure to review and revise the job hazard identification and risk assessment when job conditions changed, not ensuring rubber gloves were used as required by the rule book, and not ensuring a jumper cable was used before an energized shield wire was cut.
The court noted that SaskPower requires tailboard meetings and risk management plans to be documented to avoid confusion or conflict over how to manage the risks. The fact that Rowlett only documented the first meeting and didn’t document the second after the job changed hurt his credibility — particularly when Rowlett initially claimed he couldn’t remember who cut the shield wire before Swahn was electrocuted and the crew reported they had verbally discussed the new step of cutting the shield wire and jumpering it at the second tailboard meeting.
Rowlett also claimed he would never need to tell workers to jumper a line before cutting it as it was part of lineman knowledge and the risk was “self-evident,” but the court found this didn’t eliminate the need to go over the risks, hazards, and procedures.
“People can, and sometimes do, still forget. That is the reason why all tasks need to be assessed to identify the risks, especially where the risk is between the life and death of a worker,” the court said. “That is the whole reason SaskPower has a safety rule book with all these risk management policies and procedures in the first place.”
The court found there was nothing that made it not reasonably practicable for Rowlett to go over and document the changes to the job the crew was performing on Dec. 20, 2014. There was no qualification as to what amounted to a “minor” change and the rule book indicated all tasks must be assessed and hazards identified for any change to the job. Regardless, cutting shield wire on the ground brought its own separate risks and was not a minor change to the original job plan, said the court.
The court also found Rowlett played “a direct role in the accident when he wrapped the shield wire with tape only seconds before it was cut.” Rowlett was directly involved in the job and “cannot extract himself from this situation,” said the court.
The court determined that Rowlett didn’t follow safety procedure as outlined in the safety rule book and didn’t do everything he reasonably could have to ensure the safety of Swahn, convicting him on those two counts. However, it acquitted Rowlett of the charge regarding the rubber gloves, as the evidence showed it wasn’t approved SaskPower procedure for workers to wear rubber gloves when working on transmission lines.
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