CAMERON COUNTY PUBLIC WORKS FINDS TRENCH RETAINER

By Juan Montoya
It took a little prodding but the geniuses running the Cameron County Public Works Department finally found the trench retainer meant to protect county workers from cave-ins at excavations.
It took one injured and disabled employee and numerous photos to document that the county had the trench retainer in its possession before a search for the safety device was found.
"They found it way back of the county bark in San Benito covered by weeds," said a source close to the public works crews. "They had forgotten that they had it."
We have outlined here that the Powers-that-Be at Public Works decided to make Ruben Gonzalez supervisor there after Luis Ara resigned for unspecified reasons.
The scene at happened on Vermillion Road near Lucio Middle School where workers were made to go into the unprotected trench even though the trench is deeper than the four feet thresh hold where OSHA requires protection for workers.
Heavy concrete sidewalks overhanging trenches are notorious for sliding off their earthen retainers and come hurtling down on unprotected workers. The photo, as you see it, constitutes an imminent danger to the crews below.
The scene at bottom right took place recently on Houston Road, where Public Works employees were made to climb into the trench without the protection required by the federal government's Office of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that state that: "While the excavation is open, underground installations shall be protected, supported or removed as necessary to safeguard employees."
There is a diverse number of ways to protect workers specific to the excavation. But tell that to the current supervisors and foremen who now work for Cameron County.
"They were working in an unprotected trench a couple of streets from a private company where workers doing the same thing have the required protection," said our source. "The department already had one cave-in which resulted in injuries to one worker."

Gonzalez showed immediately upon arrival at the department that he didn't know his keister from a bar ditch. His first project was in Cameron Park where workers were working on a deep trench.
He had workers climb into the deep trench without the OSHA-mandated protection. OSHA mandates that entities doing the work may use a trench box or shield that is either designed or approved by a registered professional engineer or is based on tabulated data prepared or approved by a registered professional engineer.
Well, our Mr. Gonzalez knew nothing of this and one of the workers, Javier Mendoza (Nuco), had the misfortune of suffering the predicable: the trench collapsed and trapped him under tons of dirt.
He suffered serious injuries including damage to his internal organs and has now been declared disabled and can no longer work. The county was forced to pay for all the injured worker's medical and disability insurance payments.
Gonzalez was suspended for two weeks, but after Ara had to resign, county honchos (Administrative Asst. David Garcia) rewarded Gonzalez by promoting him to the supervisory  position and putting him in charge. Now – as we can see in the Vermillion Road work site (above, top right) – he continued to expose the workers (and the county) to injury and liability.
 Now that the trench-wall retainer has been found and dusted off perhaps the workers can get some protection, if Gonzalez and his underlings know how to use it.