Ebasco Services Inc.

Ebasco Services had been hired by Consolidated Edison Co. of NY, a public utility, to perform certain management, construction, and engineering functions in connection with a project to extend the utility's Astoria Queens Generating Station. Part of this involved constructing a temporary metal boxlike structure called a cofferdam, which allows for waters to be pumped out and workers to descend to the river bottom to construct certain permanent facilities for the project. Construction of the coffedram was undertaken by a company called Spearin, Preston & Burrows Inc. and the fieldwork was under supervision of George Reider, an executive Vice President of Spearin. A portion of the cofferdam collapsed, causing the dewatered area to fill with water in less than a minute, drowning the two workers.