Contractor and site supervisor penalized after worker is burned by hot water during water main relining (Ontario)

A North York trenchless technology contractor and one of its site supervisors have been fined a combined $147,000 after a worker sustained serious injuries when exposed to hot water during a water main relining project in Cambridge, Ontario. Following guilty pleas in Kitchener Provincial Offences Court, the employer was fined $140,000 and the supervisor $7,000, with convictions recorded on October 3, 2025. The court also applied a 25% victim fine surcharge under the Provincial Offences Act. According to the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, “The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.”

What happened

The incident occurred on July 11, 2023 at a municipal water main rehabilitation job in Cambridge, where the contractor had been engaged to rehabilitate a section of water main. The crew on site included the supervisor and five workers.

The work involved installing a resin liner in approximately 100 metres of 16-inch water main. To cure the liner, water was heated in a boiler truck to roughly 65–70°C and circulated through the main for several hours.

During the final stage of the relining process, a foreman directed a worker to remove a hose from a connection inside an access pit. The worker entered the excavation using wooden shoring and began removing the hose. While doing so, the worker was exposed to hot water still circulating in the line and suffered serious injuries. The worker attempted to exit the pit, fell back in during the first attempt, and managed to climb out on the second attempt.

The critical issue: emergency exit wasn’t in place, Ladder not installed

Investigators found that a ladder had been supplied at grade near the excavation but was not installed inside the pit at the time of the incident, delaying emergency egress.

Regulators concluded that the employer failed to ensure required safety measures and procedures were carried out—specifically, the requirement to provide adequate means of egress to enable evacuation during an emergency, contrary to Ontario Regulation 213/91 (Construction Projects), section 71, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act, section 25(1)(c).

The supervisor was also found to have failed to ensure compliance with below-grade egress requirements—such as providing egress by stairs, runway, ramp, or ladder—contrary to the Occupational Health and Safety Act, section 27(1)(a), noted the Ontario government.

This case is a reminder that “having a ladder on-site” is not the same as “safe egress is in place.” On any job involving excavations/access pits, especially where there’s hot-water curing, crews should treat egress as a non-negotiable control:

• Install the ladder before anyone enters (not “later” or “when needed”).

• Treat final-stage tasks (disconnecting hoses, removing connections, demobilizing) as high-risk—that’s where complacency spikes.

• Confirm the system status before disassembly: temperature, flow, and isolation should be verified so no one is exposed to unexpected hot-water release.

  
  

According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), employers are required to "take every reasonable precaution to ensure the workplace is safe" and train employees about "any potential and actual hazards and how to work safely."

Therefore, don’t take safety for granted. A missing control is never “just a small thing” — it can cost a life-changing injury, major downtime, and six-figure fines. In the end, everyone loses: workers, teams, and the business.