Text For Citation: 02 Item/Group: 001 Hazard: ELECTRIC

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970: The employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were exposed to electrical explosion and/or severe burns while performing live line phasing and voltage checks on 4160 volt cable in a manhole without first following the proper procedures for finding and analyzing faults, conducting insulation assurance tests and/or testing the insulation to determine the presence of moisture. Among other feasible and acceptable methods to correct these hazards would be to locate all underground faults using the capacitor discharge cable fault locator, perform insulation assurance tests on all new cable installations and all cables which have faulted before the cables are energized and/test for the presence of moisture before energizing the cable: a) Manhole #18809: Employees were performing live line tests on energized 4160 volt cables which had faulted without first conducting proper fault finding and analyizing tests or assurance.