Water-service failures blamed for worker's blast death
The Northern Ireland Water Service has been found responsible for the death of a contractor killed in an explosion at a treatment works near Derry last year, it was announced today.
Father-of-six Drew Stevenson, 51, was killed and a colleague seriously injured in the explosion during construction work at the Carnmoney Water Treatment Works in Eglinton in June last year.
A Crown Censure hearing about the death was held yesterday following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive.
The Censure concluded: “There were shortcomings in the risk-management procedures for Carnmoney Water Treatments Works that led to the tragedy.”
The Water Service accepted the censure, and presented information to the hearing on measures put in place since the blast to prevent it happening again.
Censure hearings are held behind closed doors, but a statement from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said their investigation found: “Northern Ireland Water Service failed to take adequate steps to prevent the risk of an explosion occurring during the construction work that was taking place at the plant near to a source of hydrogen gas.
“As a result of this failure, hydrogen gas was ignited, causing a violent explosion in which one contractor was killed and another seriously injured.”
Crown Censure is an administrative procedure the HSE follows in circumstances where a case cannot be taken to a court of law because of the immunity from prosecution enjoyed by bodies such as the Water Service.
The Water Service accepted that, but for this immunity, there was sufficient evidence for the case to have been taken to court with a reasonable prospect of conviction.
Mr Stevenson, from Killen, Castlederg, Co Tyrone, was working as a welder on the roof of the waterworks when a 10 foot by 12 foot storage tank was blasted through the roof and 200 feet into the air.
Urgent inspections of nearly 20 other treatment works were carried out and British government minister said he was confident the set of circumstances that caused the accident would not be repeated at other plants.
