LAS VEGAS — A recently hired plumber was sent into the bowels of the Orleans hotel and casino last year to unplug a sewer pipe in a large grease trap -- an assignment that would be his last.
The hotel had no permit or training program to allow plumber Richard Luzier to enter a confined space where he might inhale poisonous sewer gas. He had no breathing apparatus or emergency rescue harness -- all routine precautions.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, August 02, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 76 words Type of Material: Correction
Las Vegas building accidents: An article in Monday's Section A about a deadly streak of construction and building accidents in Las Vegas said that D. Roger Bremner, director of the Nevada Division of Industrial Relations, met with Boyd Gaming officials and reduced the severity of proposed workplace safety citations after an accident killed two workers at the company's Orleans Hotel and Casino. Bremner said he made the decision but did not meet with the company's officials.
Luzier fell 12 feet and landed face down in fatty sewage. As supervisors watched, a second unprepared worker, Travis Koehler, went into the pit to help. He collapsed on top of Luzier. A third man, David Snow, was sent in.
By the time city rescue personnel could enter the trap, Snow was in a coma, heaped atop the first two men, who were dead. Snow woke 23 days later in the hospital with a tube down his throat and permanent disabling injuries.
Investigators at the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded that the casino, owned by Boyd Gaming Corp., had "willfully" violated safety rules.
The company had a previous violation involving such confined spaces. And the investigators found evidence that in 2001 a worker fell sick after working in a grease trap and was cared for in a hotel room for several days before being sent to a hospital, according to state records.
But when the investigators tried to formally cite the company after the two men's deaths, Boyd attorneys pressed two political appointees overseeing Nevada OSHA, Mendy Elliott and D. Roger Bremner, for a less severe finding. In a private settlement conference, Bremner, administrator of the Nevada Division of Industrial Relations, knocked the finding down to "serious" rather than "willful," according to state records. A willful finding could have exposed Boyd to civil suits, normally prevented by workers compensation law.
"You don't touch a casino in this state," said Don Barker, the former safety director of Boyd Gaming. "I got paid to make things go away. I might go into a conference facing a $25,000 fine and leave with a $1,500 fine. This situation would never happen in any other state. The program has no teeth."
Barker said he had asked for safety improvements at the Orleans before the accident but was blocked by management. Afterward, he quit in protest and now works as a safety official elsewhere in Las Vegas.
The Orleans accident was among the first in a streak of fatal accidents in Las Vegas buildings and construction sites that has taken a dozen lives in the last 16 months.
In case after case, the state has dropped or sharply reduced fines and penalties proposed by investigators, just as it did in the Orleans case. To some critics, the handling of the accidents has sent a message to the construction and gaming industries that they can disregard safety rules with near impunity.
The concern comes amid a building boom unlike anything in the city's history. The Las Vegas area has $31 billion of construction underway and another $25 billion in the planning stages, according to Applied Analysis, an economic research company.
MGM Mirage is building the $9-billion CityCenter project with six hotel and condo towers, billed as the nation's largest privately funded construction project.
But the frenetic pace has led to a spate of fatal accidents.
Until 2006, Nevada had a fatal accident rate in construction slightly higher than the national average of 12.3 per hundred thousand, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the 12 recent deaths could drive the state's rate up when the 2007 numbers are computed.
As the problems in Nevada have unfolded, unions have walked off the job in protest. The U.S. Labor Department has sent a team to examine the state OSHA program. The U.S. House Education and Labor Committee is investigating. The Las Vegas Sun published a series of stories detailing a pattern of safety problems and lax enforcement.
And the Nevada Attorney General's Office is conducting its own ethics probe into the conduct of Elliott and Bremner. Conrad Hafen, chief deputy attorney general, said his department would not comment on its ongoing investigation.
The gaming industry doesn't like the image. Alan Feldman, senior vice president of public affairs at MGM Mirage, said the safety record was not satisfactory. At MGM's CityCenter project, six workers have died, and the company has expanded its safety program with its general contractor, Perini Building Co., he said.
Union leaders say the fault lies with Nevada OSHA.
"It is a broken system," said Steven D. Ross, secretary-treasurer of the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council and a Las Vegas city councilman. "We are concerned about the lack of oversight by Nevada OSHA."
In the Orleans case, state OSHA documents show that on Aug. 7, 2007, Boyd officials were told they would receive willful, repeat and serious citations for the Feb. 2, 2007 accident. Investigators recommended that Boyd pay a $433,500 fine, according to internal OSHA documents.
