Amacon Construction fined $29,809 over safety violations at Coquitlam worksite

Amacon Construction has been fined $29,809 after WorkSafeBC cited several violations at its construction site at 500 Foster Ave. and 638 Whiting Way. Inspectors visited on May 27 while subcontractors were completing electrical, plumbing and concrete-forming work for Amacon’s 44-storey highrise and seven-storey wood-frame building.

A subcontractor received a stop-work order after inspectors saw a worker in an elevated basket doing siding work near a high-voltage overhead power line. A WorkSafeBC report said the workers were unaware of the voltage associated with the lines. Inside the building, workers were spray-applying polyurethane foam insulation without an apparent exposure-control plan or proper respiratory protection. Inspectors found the provided ventilation plan inadequate and said the subcontractor had not implemented it; that subcontractor was also ordered to stop work.

The report identified stairways without handrails, mezzanines 12 feet above grade without guardrails, and two 12-foot-deep sumps lacking warning signs or barricades. Drywall boards stacked in hallways, propane cylinders and vertically stored doors were not secured.

An inspector also saw a forklift removing bags of concrete dust from the parkade. Workers were removing bags of silica dust near the highrise parkade entrance ramp, and concrete dust and sand had accumulated in the parkade and elsewhere in the building. The report noted the employer’s responsibility to promptly clean the dust because crystalline silica particles can settle deep in exposed workers’ lungs.

Although the site had several chemical toilets, it had only three flush toilets for 165 workers, fewer than half the recommended number. The site previously experienced a shoring-wall collapse in November 2023. No one was injured. More than a year before the collapse, Amacon had found that efforts to remove water from the site were ineffective; later dewatering methods loosened soil, leading to punched anchors and voids behind the shoring walls in April 2023.