OSHA ends investigation into water tower demolition mishap in Independence
The U.S. Department of Labor has closed a safety investigation into an incident where a dilapidated water tower came crashing down during demolition in January in Independence.
The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration completed its investigation, and the case is now closed, said Scott Allen, a U.S. Department of Labor spokesman.
“The people conducting the work were individual owners of separate companies, so there was no employee/employer relationship,” Allen said in an email. Therefore, OSHA didn’t have jurisdiction.
According to OSHA records, the investigation involving Cornelius Wrecking of St. Joseph was closed on April 2.
How did the water tower come down?
Crews had intended for the water tower, built in 1913 at 524 S. Osage St., to fall into an open plot of grass to the north, but the first attempt failed. Crews then attempted to bring it down by sawing the tower’s legs and using a truck with a cord to pull it down.
As crews sawed the legs, the tower buckled and fell across South Osage Street, damaging power lines.
“We measured and we knew if it did fall this way, it would be exactly eight feet from the house, and when it fell, it was,” Dustin Lankford, an employee with Cornelius Wrecking, said at the time. “We knew it wouldn’t hit the house, but we were worried about the debris.”
The water tower was built next to a flour mill, which used to sit on the same plot of land. The mill went out of business in the 1960s. The city had never used the tower for water. When the city acquired the property more than 10 years ago, the water tower was already in disrepair.
A 2014 study determined that the tower was unsalvageable. Long before its demolition, the city had fenced off part of the nearby sidewalk because debris had fallen off the tower and landed near people walking their dogs.
