August 25, 2010

Falling Calgary construction debris takes liquid form

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

Two separate investigations are looking into the cause of a liquid spill that splattered a truck near a high-rise construction site in downtown Calgary.

“Fluid was spilled on a member of the public’s truck,” said Alberta Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) spokesperson Chris Chodan. “An OHS officer is undertaking an investigation.”

A Calgary man parked his truck on Ninth Avenue near Eighth Avenue Place downtown on Aug. 16.

He returned to his truck later to find a white liquid had spilled and dried on the vehicle. Other vehicles were also splattered.

“We are able to confirm that it was a mixture of water with a fire spray material that is applied to structural steel or members, ceilings and the underside of floors to get a fire protection rating,” said Calgary senior special projects officer Marco Civitarese.

“It fell from the building. But, we won’t know how or why it fell until we have a report that provides some measures of action to prevent this from happening again in the future.”

Civitarese said a stop-work notice was given to the primary contractor EllisDon and the subcontractor.

“The firm that was doing the fire proofing admits they had a spill of clean up water, with fire proofing material in it,” said Chodan, who added that the material safety data sheet shows that it was not a hazardous material.

EllisDon in Calgary will compensate car owners for any cleaning costs incurred by the falling fluid.

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