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A big tent's pole touches an overhead power line at the National Scout Jamboree site where four Scout leaders were electrocuted. |
By JEFF BRANSCOME
A now-defunct Virginia tent company will not appeal a citation for two "serious" violations it received last month from federal safety officials investigating the electrocution of four Boy Scout leaders on the opening day of last summer's National Scout Jamboree.
Tents and Events Inc. of Fishersville--a division of RentQuick.com--yesterday paid $3,000 to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The original fine was $5,600, but OSHA reduced it because RentQuick.com promised to better train its employees in safety and health-related work practices if and when it reopens the tent business, said Charles T. Pope, director of the agency's Norfolk office.
OSHA can levy fines of up to $7,000 for each serious violation, Pope said, and $70,000 for those deemed "willful."
The Scout leaders were killed July 25 at Fort A.P. Hill in Caroline County when a metal center pole for a large dining tent they were erecting struck a power line. The men had been helping two contractors from Tents and Events, which closed just days after the incident.
The OSHA citation first states that the contractors didn't recognize "hazards associated with their respective work assignments in the erecting of tents, with conductive parts."
Next, it states that the two workers raised the 28-foot, 8-inch pole without adhering to the "required minimum safe distance of 10 feet" from three overhead power lines.
The victims were Michael J. Shibe, 49, Mike Lacroix, 42, and Ronald H. Bitzer, 58, all of Anchorage, Alaska, and Scott Edward Powell, 57, of Perrysville, Ohio. Shibe and Lacroix had sons participating in the jamboree.
RentQuick.com owner Brett Hayes referred questions to his lawyer, Michael Harman of Richmond.
Harman said the Waynesboro-based company paid the fines, in part, because OSHA reduced the penalties and didn't charge Tents and Events with "willful and intentional misconduct."
And "by them resolving the matter now, it allows for the immediate release of the facts of the OSHA investigation," he said.
The Free Lance-Star filed a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request in January for a detailed report of OSHA's investigation, which Pope said he will release next week.
Kenneth G. Schoolcraft, an Anchorage lawyer and spokesman for the family of Ronald Bitzer, said he looks forward to reviewing the agency's case file.
"I just want to see what they have to say," he said. "They talked about the training of the Tents and Events people. What was that training? I don't know."
To reach JEFF BRANSCOME:
Email: jbranscome@freelancestar.com
