Beginning on January 1, 2009, all excavators must obtain a permit prior to the creation of a trench made for a construction-related purpose on public or private land or rights-of-way in accordance with Chapter 82A of the Massachusetts General Laws. All municipalities must also establish a local permitting authority for the purpose of issuing these permits, with the designation of the local permitting authority left to the discretion of the individual municipalities. Chapter 82A further directs the Department of Public Safety and the Division of Occupational Safety to jointly draft regulations relative to trench safety.  These regulations are codified in section 14.00 of title 520 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations.

If you follow the link above, it will bring you to the full detailed regulation. However, I wanted to highlight a few things that jumped out at me in the regulation. The new trench permit requires information such as the name of the Competent Person, Excavator, Hoisting License Number and Expiration Date, the location of the Trench, a Certificate of Insurance and the Dig Safe Number.

This new regulation applies to all construction-related trenches on public ways, public property or private property. This means that anyone who is going to dig a trench has to pull a permit. They have also not modified the OSHA Excavation Standard, 29 CFR 1926, Subpart P, they have added this in as a City Regulation in addition to the OSHA Standard.

Permitting Authorities are not required to conduct inspections of trenches for which they have issued permits. However, a permitting authority notified of a potential violation is authorized to take action, including immediate shutdown, if violations of new regulations are identified.

So, if you know anyone who does trench work, please make sure they are aware of these new regulations. Please feel free to contact us about any of the OSHA Regulations if you have any questions.