In a recent article, we addressed a picture sent in by an installer where he or an employee was shown in a trench excavation where the sidewalls extended above his head without any visible protection such as shoring, sloping or means of escape (ladder). The rationale of the installer was that the soils were cohesive enough that he did not have to provide protection; so we reviewed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration soil classification system and the required sloping protections for the different classifications.
About the time the column was slated to run, we read about a sewer crew working
