Building the Calaveras Dam Replacement Project Safely

Today, the Calaveras Dam Replacement Project took a moment to celebrate another safety milestone. We have reached over 105,000 safety hours with zero recordable incidents for this quarter. 

Our crews from the joint venture of Dragados USA, Flatiron and Sukut Construction have been working both day and night shifts in Sunol Valley. This safety record is very impressive with all the major work that has involved operating heavy machinery, prepping the foundation for the new dam, importing of materials to the site and placing materials to build the replacement dam. Along with a great safety record, we have also brought on over 280 new local hires to the project this quarter. 

Since construction began in 2011, we have reached over 1.4 million total working hours on the job. Our project has not had any lost time recordable incidents since 2012. We strive to maintain our safety culture here at the Calaveras Dam Replacement Project as we continue the critical work ahead to construct the replacement dam. 

Calaveras Dam workers pose for a photo today at the Safety Milestone celebration

Our workers have been working in tight areas where safety is always a priority

Calaveras Dam Celebrates another Safety Milestone

According to the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), nearly 6.5 million people work at construction sites across the nation on any given day. The rate of injuries for construction workers is higher than those workers in other job categories in the United States. On average, we could have 150 workers on site at the Calaveras Dam Replacement Project.

The construction crews at the Calaveras Dam Replacement Project work multiple shifts – both day and night – working with huge machinery on a very complicated job site in challenging conditions. And yet the construction crews, who work for the joint venture of Dragados USA, Flatiron Construction and Sukut Construction, celebrated a huge safety milestone this week. Our crews have worked 75,000 safe working hours for the last quarter (from September 24, 2015 through December 31, 2015) without any recordable safety incidents. In fact, to date, they have a total of 304,146 work hours without recordable safety incidents as of December 2015. The last lost time incident was recorded in 2012. The teams celebrated with a well-deserved barbeque lunch on site to celebrate their success, and remind each other of the need to continue with their best practices to keep everyone safe.

As we continue the critical work to complete the project, we applaud our teams for continuing to make safety a priority here at Calaveras Dam.



Construction team who perform major structural work at the dam
(Pictured in no particular order: Jose Rodriguez, Dewayne Grayer, Ben Simbra, Benny Jasper, Alfredo Simao, Miles Cheek, Tomas Orantes, Eddie Fuentes, Garrett Colvin, Mike Morrison



Construction work on the new spillway chute