Construction accident kills Crawford Co. Highway worker
By Jon Swaner Published: August 30, 2016, 12:40 pm Updated: August 30, 2016, 12:45 pm
ANNAPOLIS, Ill. (WTHI) – A construction accident took the life of a Crawford County Highway Department worker. It happened about 1:30 Monday afternoon on N. 2000th Street, about a half-mile west of Illinois Route 1.
Crawford County Coroner Earl Deckard tells News 10 Mark McCoy, 53 of rural Flat Rock, was helping to unload steel pipe culvert from a trailer when it rolled and crushed him. Deckard says the pipe weighs more than 2000 pounds. Deckard pronounced McCoy dead on the scene shortly after law enforcement arrive on the scene.
Deckard says while the investigation into McCoy’s death continues, he’s determined the death to be accidental.
Cows lay under a tree in East Texas after a lightning strike struck a tree and killed them Sunday night. Ashley Anderson Facebook
By Tom Uhler
uhler@star-telegram.com
Call it a freak of nature: Lightning struck a tree in a pasture in East Texas and electrocuted 19 head of cattle, witnesses told KLTV 7 in Tyler.
The cows had sought refuge from a storm Sunday night under the tree on land north of Hallsville in Harrison County between Longview and Marshall.
“All of a sudden, a lightning bolt came down and the cows just fell, in the blink of an eye,” witness Victor Benson told KLTV. “And it was over.”
Some of the cows got up and stumbled away, he said. The rest just lay there, about a third of the herd in that lot of the pasture. Benson said he called the owners, the Anderson family.
“It’s not something you see everyday,” Ashley Anderson told the station. In fact, she said her husband, who has worked around cattle his whole life, has never seen anything like it.
“It’s just kind of surreal to see it,” she said.
Even more surreal, just Friday more than 300 reindeer were electrocuted by lightning on a mountain plateau in southern Norway. A TV2 video of the scene shows a vast hillside covered with reindeer.
“Individual animals do from time to time get killed by lightning, and there are incidents where sheep have been killed in groups of 10 or even 20,” Kjartan Knutsen of the Norwegian Environment Agency told The New York Times, “but we have never seen anything like this.”
The scale is what’s striking. “It’s just a freak thing,” Anderson said of the incident in East Texas.
But apparently it’s not uncommon:
The Andersons told KLTV that the cows were removed from the pasture after the storm Sunday and given to people for meat.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article98814902.html#storylink=cpy
Sep 1st, 2016
NEW YORK — The Coast Guard is advising mariners and swimmers along the New York and New Jersey coasts to use caution this week.
Tropical Depression Eight and Tropical Storm Hermine are forecasted to impact beaches and waterways from North Carolina to New York as they transit the Mid-Atlantic region during the next several days.
“With the potential for tropical depressions and rip currents in our area, our overall concern is ensuring the safety of everyone on the water,” said Capt. Thomas Morkan, Deputy of Coast Guard Sector New York command center. “We want to stress the importance of safety to all mariners, personal watercraft users, and beachgoers as these two weather systems pass through our region.” Mariners are warned to take the following precautions to protect their vessels and their crews:
-Check bridge schedules for any changes and plan ahead accordingly.
-If a storm is approaching, do not go out to sea.
-Double-check lines securing your boat if it is moored up and take precautions for items stored loosely aboard.
-Contact local marinas for advice on how best to secure your vessel.
-Ensure that you have the proper signaling devices aboard your vessel and the correct amount of Personal Floatation Devices.
-Have a float plan in place before getting underway. Swimmers and personal watercraft users are advised to:
-Be extra cautious of rip tides. Check your local beach forecast before you leave for the beach and talk with lifeguards located at the beach.
-Do not go swimming on a beach without a lifeguard.
-Make sure to have a proper personal flotation device for yourself and each of your loved ones when on the water.
-For information on how to identify and avoid rip currents, visit the following NOAA link: http://ift.tt/2bMLcUE For additional guidance mariners are advised to contact their local harbormaster.
30 arrested in bid to disrupt Iowa pipeline project
William Petroski, bpetrosk@dmreg.com 6:48 a.m. CDT September 1, 2016
More than 100 protesters converged on the Farm Progress grounds in Boone today to stand up against the Dakota Access pipeline. They chanted, and some blocked the entrance to the construction site grounds, prompting officials to make arrests. Bryon Houlgrave/The Register
(Photo: Rachel Mummey/The Register)
BOONE, Ia. — As a crowd of Iowa protesters chanted, "This is what democracy looks like," 30 activists were arrested here Wednesday in an effort aimed at disrupting construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline.
The protest represented one of the largest demonstrations yet in Iowa against the four-state pipeline project. It also was the first time a formal effort was made to encourage a large number of arrests in a bid to obstruct construction work in Iowa. Organizers vowed afterward that additional demonstrations will be forthcoming, along with more arrests.
Their efforts appeared to have little effect Wednesday on stopping the pipeline construction project, which will diagonally cross 18 counties in Iowa. But the people taken into custody said they were acting as a last resort because efforts to prevent the pipeline have repeatedly failed in proceedings with state and federal government regulators, as well as the courts.
Overall, about 100 people from throughout Iowa gathered at a Dakota Access construction staging site near the grounds of the Farm Progress Show. They initially rallied in a parking area used by the farm show, expressing concerns about the environmental impacts of the pipeline and objections to the use of eminent domain to forcibly build the pipeline through highly productive farmland. Those arrested are expected to face misdemeanor charges of trespassing, authorities said.
Crystal Defatte, 31, of Bettendorf, a stay-at-home mother with three children, was among those arrested as she stood with other protesters in solidarity against the pipeline project.
"Every year you hear about oil spills. I don't want oil in the water that my children drink. This is a moral responsibility for me," Defatte said.
A representative of Precision Pipeline, a contractor for Dakota Access, told the protesters they were not welcome and asked them to leave after they tried to create human chains to block four entrances to the site. Authorities then repeatedly told the protesters they had the opportunity to leave without being taken into custody, but all of those arrested refused to move. The arrests all occurred at the construction staging site, said Maj. Randy Kunert of the Iowa State Patrol.
The 30-inch-diameter pipeline typically will carry about 450,000 barrels per day, with capacity of up to 570,000 barrels per day. The route will begin in the Bakken oil fields near Stanley, N.D., and end at Patoka, Ill., where the oil can be transported via another pipeline to the Gulf Coast or shipped to other markets. The project also has faced protest and controversy in North Dakota and South Dakota.
Dakota Access officials declined to comment on the arrests.
Business leaders and union construction workers have lined up in support of the pipeline project, citing positive economic benefits and a desire for U.S. energy security. Mike Ralston, president of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, and Bill Gerhard, president of the Iowa State Building & Construction Trades Council, have both strongly endorsed the pipeline.
Chad Carter, business agent and vice president for Operating Engineers, Local 234 in Des Moines, which is providing heavy equipment operators for the construction project, dismissed the protesters’ objections to the pipeline as hypocritical. He said the activists rely on petroleum-based fuels like everyone else and he joked that they didn’t arrive in Boone County in solar-powered vehicles for their demonstration. But pipeline workers have been told by law enforcement officials to abide by the law and let authorities handle any problems with protesters, he added
"Our people are there to do a job, and they will keep doing it until they are told to stop," Carter said.
A long caravan of protesters make their way to the parking area of the Farm Progress grounds on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016. More than 100 protesters gathered to voice their opinion against the development of the Bakken Pipeline during a rally on four of the entrances to the pipeline construction site. Bryon Houlgrave/The Register
A long caravan of protesters make their way to the parking area of the Farm Progress grounds on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016. More than 100 protesters gathered to voice their opinion against the development of the Bakken Pipeline during a rally on four of the entrances to the pipeline construction site. Bryon Houlgrave/The Register
The Boone County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday night that 30 people were taken into custody. About 40 law enforcement officers oversaw the demonstration, including Iowa State Patrol troopers and Boone County sheriff's deputies.They were joined by a small number of private security workers.
Ed Fallon, a former Des Moines legislator who heads Bold Iowa, part of a coalition which opposes the pipeline, said more protests are planned. He didn't risk arrest Wednesday, but said he intends to do so when the project crosses the land of an Iowa family that is being unwillingly forced to provide access to their farmland.
The protesters had held training earlier Wednesday in Pilot Mound to provide instruction about how to engage in civil disobedience and they were strongly urged not to engage in any violence. Fallon said the protesters didn't hold any grudges against Iowa law enforcement officers after they made arrests.
"They have been fair and decent to us. They are just doing the bidding of Gov. Branstad and Big Oil," Fallon said.
The pipeline project is expected to employ 2,000 to 4,000 construction workers in Iowa this summer and fall. However, license plates of pipeline workers' vehicles show many are from outside of Iowa — places like Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and other states. Dakota Access has promised to hire at least 50 percent of the construction workforce from Iowa union halls.
Dakota Access, a unit of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, had sought a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court in Des Moines earlier this week to prevent anti-pipeline activists from interfering with the pipeline project and to require them to remain at least 25 feet away from the route. A federal judge denied the request, but has scheduled a court hearing on Friday to consider the company's request for a preliminary injunction to restrict the protesters.
Construction had started in May on the pipeline project in North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois. But work didn’t begin on the 346-mile route in Iowa until June because of regulatory hurdles.
A Dakota Access lawyer told the Iowa Utilities Board last week the pipeline is expected to become operational in November, although Iowa lags behind other states in construction progress.
As of last week, 22 percent of the pipeline in Iowa had been welded and lowered into trenches, and three-fourths of the route had been cleared. In South Dakota, 93 percent of the pipeline had already been constructed. In North Dakota, the project was 63 percent finished, and in Illinois it was 62 percent completed, Dakota Access lawyers said.
The push for completion of the pipeline comes as many major fossil fuel projects across the United States have been shelved or significantly delayed because of new regulations, grassroots opposition and a decline in energy prices. More than a dozen projects, worth about $33 billion, have either been rejected by regulators or withdrawn since 2012, according to news reports.
The pipeline still faces a trial in December on a lawsuit from property owners who object to the use of eminent domain to secure access to farmland for the project, and a legal challenge from the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club, which contends the Iowa Utilities Board erred in granting approval. A decision on the eminent issue could ultimately be decided by the Iowa Supreme Court.
A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll conducted in late February showed that a plurality of 47 percent of adult Iowans supported construction of the pipeline, while 40 percent were against it and 14 percent were not sure. But public support for the pipeline had decreased by 10 percentage points since February 2015. The poll surveyed 804 Iowa adults.
Look at some numbers associated with the Bakken Pipeline, (Dakota Access Crude Pipeline) Rodney White/The Register
===================
Dozens arrested across two states during Dakota Access Pipeline protests
By Nicolas Torres -
September 1, 2016
Over two dozen protesters were arrested across two states on Wednesday during demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
According to the Des Moines Register, about 30 people were arrested in Boone County, Iowa on a trespassing charge while trying to block construction on the $3.7 billion project.
A representative for Precision Pipeline, a contractor working on the project, reportedly told the protesters to leave the site after they attempted to block four entrances, the paper said.
The protesters were taken to the Boone County Jail.
Eight protesters were also arrested at a separate demonstration in South Dakota on Wednesday.
According to the Bismark Tribune, Dale “Happy” American Horse Jr. was arrested after spending more than six hours with arms around a lock box at one of the pipeline’s construction sites in South Dakota.
Local police officers eventually had to saw a pipe away from the protester’s hands to remove him from the site.
Several other protesters were also arrested at the scene for attempting to block the use of construction equipment, the Bismark Tribune said.
Native American and environmentalist groups have been protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline citing concerns about water quality.
In August, District Court Judge James Boasberg held a hearing for a preliminary injunction the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is seeking to stop construction on the line.
The injunction is part of a lawsuit the tribe filed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year.
The tribe has claimed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated historic preservation and environmental laws when it approved the pipeline, according to Reuters.
Judge Boasberg expects to announce his decision by September 9.
The Dakota Access Project will stretch 1,172 miles and will connect Bakken and Three Forks production areas in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois.
According to the Des Moines Register, lawyers for Dakota Access told the Iowa Utilities Board last week that nearly a quarter of the pipeline’s section in Iowa had been welded and lowered into the ground.
The lawyers added that 93 percent of the pipeline’s South Dakota section has been built and 63 percent of its North Dakota section has been completed.
NEW INFORMATION: worker killed in Lake Hallie industrial accident
By Keith Edwards Posted: Aug 31, 2016 5:43 PM EST Chippewa Falls, WI
Lake Hallie (WQOW) - We have new information surrounding a death in the Village of Lake Hallie.
Otto Kolpien, from Chippewa Falls, died last week while working at Huffcutt Concrete. According to an investigation by the Chippewa County Sheriff's Office, a large steel form used to make concrete septic tanks fell on him.
Investigators believe a secondary hook on the hoist was not fully hooked, and did not have a safety latch. A co-worker said Kolpien had worked there for about 18 years. Another co-worker told investigators that according to procedure, Kolpien should have had something underneath the form to catch it in case it fell.
The coroner's office has ruled it an accidental death. The sheriff's department has closed its investigation, but an OSHA investigation is still underway.
==========
Report: Hoist hook missing safety latch in Huffcutt Concrete death
posted Aug. 31, 2016 11:47 a.m. | updated Aug. 31, 2016 11:57 a.m. (CDT)
by / Chris Vetter.
Otto Kolpien
CHIPPEWA FALLS – One of the two hooks on a hoist at Huffcutt Concrete in Lake Hallie was not fully hooked in place and was missing a safety latch, causing a large concrete form to fall on worker Otto Kolpien on Aug. 22, crushing him and killing him instantly, the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Department reports.
The accident occurred at Huffcutt Concrete INC, 4154 123rd St., Lake Hallie, at 3:57 p.m. The sheriff’s department released the report Wednesday, which states Kolpien’s death was ruled as accidental. However, it notes that some safety measures were not followed.
Kolpien, who had worked on the equipment for 18 years, was the main person who used this particular hoist. He had gone under the heavy concrete form – it’s used to make 3,000 gallon septic tanks – to spray it with an agent, or perhaps tape and oil the form.
The concrete form was perhaps four to six feet in the air, held up by a hoist, when it came loose and fell on Kolpien.
The hoist had two hooks -- the main one, plus a secondary piece. It is unclear if the form was being held by both hooks or just one.
“It is believed that a secondary hook was not fully hooked,” the report states. “This hook also did not have a safety latch, which may have been a contributing factor.”
Chippewa County investigator Brad Lau interviewed several Huffcutt Concrete workers who heard the heavy concrete form fall. The workers re-hooked the form to the hoist and lifted it off of Kolpien, who was pinned underneath. However, it was obvious that Kolpien had died instantly, as he suffered massive trauma to his head, chest and abdomen, the coroner’s office wrote.
One of the workers, Michael Liddell, said the secondary hook didn’t have a working safety latch for the past 1 ½ years.
“Michael told us that the secondary hook is required to have a safety latch on it,” Lau wrote in his report. “Michael said that when the hooks were sent out to be certified, this particular hook came back without the safety latch.”
Liddell said the secondary hook is smaller, and fits better than the main hoist hook.
Employee Kevin Kressin said that Kolpien had always been conscientious when using the equipment, and that Huffcutt Concrete owners did not want anyone walking underneath the forms. Kressin did not know why the secondary hook “was still in use.”
However, another employee, Matthew McVinnie, told Lau that the hoists are checked daily, and the chains and hooks were recertified approximately one month ago.
OSHA officials sat in on all of Lau’s interviews with the workers. That agency is conducting its own investigation.
The report doesn’t say the weight of the concrete form, but notes it is 12’8” in length, 6’7” in width and 5’4” in height. Lau checked the hoist, which appeared to be working properly.
Kolpien, 47, lived at 647 W. Canal St., Chippewa Falls, although his family lived in Barron County. Lau had the Barron County Sheriff’s Department inform them of Kolpien’s death.
History of Huffcutt Concrete
Huffcutt Concrete was founded in 1945, in Chippewa Falls, WI. What
was once a small plant, primarily providing septic tanks to nearby
communities, Huffcutt Concrete has grown to serve several major product
areas, focusing on modular buildings, vault toilets, restrooms, utility
buildings and other parks and recreation products, available across the
country while still maintaining strong farm and septic product lines.
Huffcutt Concrete, Inc. has been focused on quality, service and
innovation in our field since 1956. Huffcutt Concrete is a member of the
Wisconsin Precast Concrete Association (WPCA), the National Precast
Concrete Association (NPCA) and is a NPCA certified plant.
Product Line
Huffcutt Concrete offers a diverse product line including standard
and customized modular buildings, restrooms, vault toilets, utility
buildings, and recreational products as well as secure storage,
agricultural products, septic tanks, and more. Custom products are also
available. Call or email us today for more information.
TANK WEIGHTS
We offer a wide range of Septic Tanks available from 280
gallons to 5,000 gallons. Larger sizes available upon request. All tanks
are approved for up to an 8' depth of bury.
| Septic Tank Size | Dimensions | Weight (lbs) | Anchor Weight (lbs) | Soil Cover (in) |
|---|
| 5000 gal |
204"L x 96"W x 93"H |
41,400 |
30,850 |
24 |
| 3000 gal |
165"L x 92"W x 76"H |
20,300 |
23,320 |
23 |
| 2600 gal |
147"L x 90"W x 73"H |
18,100 |
20,625 |
24 |
| 2000 gal |
162"L x 78"W x 64"H |
16,100 |
15,675 |
19 |
| 1600 gal |
145"L x 78"W x 61"H |
14,000 |
11,270 |
16 |
| 1200 gal |
111"L x 78"W x 61"H |
11,400 |
9,532 |
17 |
| 1000 gal Low Profile |
120"L x 67"W x 57"H |
9,500 |
8,705 |
17 |
| 1000 gal Heavy Duty |
96"L x 78"W x 61"H |
9,200 |
8,945 |
18 |
| 800 gal |
96"L x 67"W x 57"H |
8,000 |
6,560 |
16 |
| 600 gal |
78"L x 56"W x 60"H |
6,600 |
3,810 |
14 |
| 1600/1400 gal |
174"L x 90"W x 73"H |
23,000 |
22,410 |
22 |
| 1250/750 gal |
162"L x 78"W x 64"H |
16,400 |
15,725 |
19 |
| 1000/600 gal |
145"L x 78"W x 61"H |
14,700 |
12,705 |
17 |
