OSHA Inspection: BOSTON EDISON COMPANY

Issued

Nov 29, 1989

Abate by

Dec 1, 1989

Penalty

Initial $1,000 · Current $1,000

General-duty citation text

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 shock and/or severe electrical burns by working on energized
4160 volt cables within a manhole.
Among other methods of feasible and acceptable abatement methods to
correct this hazard could be to de-energize the cables and ground them
on both ends before beginning work on the cables on install bonding
jumpers between sheaths until such time that permanent sheath continuity
is established:
a) Manhole #18809: Employees were performing voltage checks and live
line phasing on the energized 4160 volt cables without installing
jumpers to maintain sheath continuity.

Issued

Nov 29, 1989

Abate by

Dec 1, 1989

Penalty

Initial $10,000 · Current $1,000 Reduced

General-duty citation text

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.