Sioux Falls Construction Company Faces OSHA Penalties

A Sioux Falls contractor has been cited for ignoring the safety requirements of its employees and gambling with their workers' lives. Not once, but at two separate construction projects.

In a statement released by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), inspectors were notified on August 18, 2022, that a work crew working the site of the intersection of 57th Street and South Mellenberndt Place in Sioux Falls had struck an overhead power line while digging trenches to install storm sewer lines.

OSHA inspectors found Siteworks Inc. of Sioux Falls failed to take the required steps to protect employees working near energized electrical powerlines from dangerous electric shock.

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The subject of the second inspection refers to a Siteworks employee installing water lines while they worked in an unprotected trench at 41st Street and Valleyview Road. Inspectors found Siteworks failed to protect workers as required against trench collapses and cave-ins.

“To understand Siteworks Inc.’s serious disregard for their employees’ safety, consider they narrowly avoided a group of workers being electrocuted on Thursday and left another worker unprotected from the deadly risk of trench collapse on Friday,” explained OSHA Area Director Sheila Stanley in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. “We will not tolerate the brazen willingness of this employer to endanger their workers and will hold them accountable for their inactions. Siteworks has provided excavation services for more the 25 years and is well aware of industry and OSHA safety requirements.”

According to OSHA, Siteworks Inc. failed to protect its work crews at both sites from known hazards as they replaced municipal sewer and water lines. The agency issued two violations, one willful and one serious, and proposed $85,005 in penalties.