An investigation by Occupational Health and Safety into the June 2015 gas explosion that shook the town of Canmore has resulted in multiple charges being laid by Crown prosecutors under the workplace safety act legislation.
APM Construction Service and Ground Zero Grading Inc. are facing multiple charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, as well as the OHS code. Two individuals, Jerry Arbeau and Andrew Pacaud, also face charges under the act as a result of the investigation. They are both charged with failing to protect the health and safety of other workers present while they themselves were working that day.
The gas explosion that led to the investigation and the charges occurred on June 26, at just before 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.
That day, crews led by general contractor APM were working on the expansion of the Bow River Seniors Lodge, a provincial government project to replace an aged seniors housing facility and create additional new units in the community.
Ground Zero Grading was the contractor hired to do excavation work and were digging into the ground when an ATCO gas line was struck.
As construction crews went door-to-door along 13th Avenue notifying residents that a gas line was hit, the gas from the ruptured line flowed through the ground and into the basement of a nearby single-family home, unoccupied by its owners at the time.
The gas found an ignition source and the resulting explosion not only obliterated the home, it caused significant damage to more than a dozen houses in the vicinity. The explosion was so strong the closest Natural Resources Canada seismograph station in Priddis, AB. – approximately 80 kilometres south of Calgary – registered a 1.1 on the Richter scale at the time of the blast.
Lawyers for both companies appeared in Canmore Provincial Court on Aug. 16 for first appearance.
Elizabeth Fashler with Norton Rose Fullbright Canada LLP in Calgary appeared on behalf of Ground Zero, while student-at-law Daniel Shapiro appeared as counsel for APM and agent for Arbeau, the company’s site supervisor.
Defence counsel asked Judge George Gaschler for two months in order to review disclosure, but the Crown indicated such a lengthy adjournment would require them to waive their right to a speedy trial.
“Otherwise the Crown is ready to set trial dates today,” said Crown prosecutor Joshua Chan.
Shapiro indicated the disclosure totals 13,000 pages, and time is needed for counsel to review it.
Gaschler agreed to set the matter to Sept. 20, saying a month is sufficient time to consider next steps and review the disclosure provided.
The charges against APM, the general contractor, include failing to ensure the health and safety of a worker; failing to ensure a subcontractor complied with the OHS act; failing to ensure a sub-contractor was made aware of any existing or potential work site hazards; failing to eliminate or control a hazard; failure to ensure when emergency action was required to control or eliminate a hazard that was dangerous to the health and safety or workers, ensuring only those capable or correcting the condition were exposed to the hazard; failing to ensure locate marks for buried concrete embedded facilities were re-established if activities at the work site moved or destroyed the locate marks; and failing to ensure that work with mechanical excavation equipment was not permitted within the hand expose zone of a buried facility until it had been exposed by hand digging or a non destructive technique.
Ground Zero Grading was charged with the same breaches of the act and code, except when they apply only to the prime contractor. In total, 13 charges between the two companies are before the courts.
According to a committee of the whole report to council in May, the municipality received notice that multiple legal actions are expected to arise from the gas explosion for uninsured losses.
Homeowners affected by the blast are taking steps to pursue uninsured losses by serving notice on all parties – ATCO Gas, the Town of Canmore, Alberta Seniors and the contractors involved – APM and Ground Zero Grading.
Those notices were done before two years had passed, the timeline within which civil action, or notice of, must be taken. OHS also had two years to investigate the explosion and, according to its website, the charges were laid against the two companies and the two individuals involved on June 19.
General manager of municipal infrastructure Michael Fark said the Town of Canmore is still waiting to receive the OHS investigation into the explosion, which determines what parties would potentially be liable.
“It is the Town’s expectation that absolutely no liability would be assigned to the municipality, at which point we would expect any legal action against us to be dropped,” he said.
The municipality, through its insurance company, has responded with a denial of liability, and has served its own statement of claim against other relevant parties for uninsured costs it incurred in response to the incident.
While there may be no clear indication on the total value of lost property yet, when the Town of Canmore sent out its property assessment notices for 2016 taxes, there was an identifiable loss. According to the assessor, properties along 13th Street lost $6.4 million in value compared to what they were assessed at the year before.
