Oilsands fatality raising eyebrows
By KEVIN CRUSH, SUN MEDIA
The second fatal incident on the Horizon oilsands project in less than two years has officials raising eyebrows.
Richard Boyd Boughner, 47, of Love, Sask., was killed Wednesday when the floating backhoe he was operating flipped in a tailings pond at the Horizon site north of Fort McMurray.
On April 4, 2007, a tank collapse on the sprawling site killed two foreign workers from China.
"It is the second incident and third fatality and that concerns us," said Barrie Harrison, spokesman for Alberta Occupational Health and Safety (OHS).
"We're concerned any time there is a fatality at any worksite, but certainly having more than one incident at a site certainly increases our concern. But until our investigation is complete I would wait to jump to any conclusions."
Around noon Wednesday, Boughner was using one of two backhoes to keep debris off an oil boom on the tailings pond. Horizon is owned by Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL). The pond had only come into use last Friday as the site is just undergoing commissioning.
Co-workers took boats out to the flipped backhoe, but couldn't get to the submerged cab.
Rescue divers pulled Boughner's body from the pond more than an hour later. The divers underwent a hazards assessment before entering the tailings pond.
Harrison suggested the possibility that the investigation may look into how chemicals in the tailings pond might affect machinery.
Boughner was a contractor with Clayton Construction of Lloydminster. Manager Jim Clayton said he didn't know much about what happened and declined comment.
Despite the deaths, Horizon has a good safety record, said CNRL vice-president Peter Janson, citing 24 million man-hours worked without lost-time injuries. But he admits three deaths trump the statistics.
"It's incidents like these that remind you that you can always improve."
A spokesman for the Christian Labour Association of Canada, the union for the Horizon project, said it will work with the company and investigators to find out what happened.
"If there is something that can be improved, we will be working towards that," said Alex Pannu.
Harrison said the investigation alone could take months followed by months more of the case being reviewed by Crown prosecutors to see whether charges should be laid.
The case of the two Chinese workers is still being reviewed by prosecutors. OHS has two years from the date of an incident to lay charges.
Janson said the site where Boughner was killed has been shut down while OHS officers investigate the scene. He anticipated it would not greatly affect the Horizon site's commissioning.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2008/09/05/6667756-sun.html
