A workman narrowly escaped injury when he was controlling traffic. Barnstaple Magistrates’ Court in the UK was told debris from the 2011 blast at Brayford Quarry in Devon also damaged waiting cars.
WCD Sleeman & Sons was fined ?20,000 and quarry operator Hanson Quarry Products Europe was fined ?20,000, with ?14,000 costs.
Sleeman admitted breaching the UK Health and Safety at Work Act, while Hanson pleaded guilty to a breach of the Quarries Regulations. The prosecution followed an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which identified “serious control failings”.
“Having printed out the survey information it had been recognised, there was loose rock which was five to six metres high,? prosecutor for the Health and Safety Executive Dale Collins said. ?That would have made it impossible to determine the burden of hard rock behind it.
“The charge of the blast should have reflected that, but the specification has not been completed properly. The holes made for the charges were offset by about 60 degrees. As a result, fly rock projected beyond the danger point.”
Collins said an example of the holes being overcharged through migration of the explosives was that in one three metre stack, there was 100 kilograms of explosive. Ordinarily 100kg of explosive would be put into a seven metre stack.
“For the prosecution against Sleeman it is identified that there was not suitable risk assessment and the company failed to react to issues. They should have identified the explosive was disappearing,? Collins said. “Hanson’s blast specification was not adequate and the danger zone was not adequate. The operator is always responsible for the site and the blasts.”
The court heard that two vehicles waiting in the queue on a public road near the quarry were hit by flying rock which dented the bonnet of one and smashed the windscreen of the other. HSE inspectors discovered a piece of rock weighing 8.5kg on the other side of the road. Six other smaller pieces of rock were also recovered from the road.
When the workman, who was acting as a sentry on the road to manage traffic during the blasting, heard the rocks coming through the trees, he used the stop-go board to cover his head and took cover next to a large van. The driver of the van saw pieces of rock pass over the workman.
WCD Sleeman and Sons Limited, of Somerset, was fined ?20,000 and ordered to pay ?17,000 in costs.
Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector of quarries, Mike Tetley, said the “entirely preventable” incident could easily have led to death or serious injury.
“Blasting operations at quarries are inherently high risk, and these risks must be rigorously controlled by good explosives engineering practice and in accordance with legal requirements,” he said. “It is totally unacceptable for both members of the public and employees to be put at serious risk of being hit by rocks, as happened here in an entirely preventable incident.”
The HSE said that with 3250 injuries, including 27 fatalities, since 2000, quarrying in the UK remained one of the most dangerous industries to work in.
Sources: BBC News, North Devon Journal, Construction Enquirer