Workers in Ohio were told a trench was too deep and sent in anyway — minutes later it caved in and killed them, according to Fox News. That's not a New York job and there's no DOB record tied to it. But it's the kind of headline that should send anyone bidding a scope with a trench in it back to the actual rulebook instead of a gut call about the soil.

The federal rule isn't complicated, it's just ignored a lot. OSHA's excavation standard, 29 CFR 1926 Subpart P, says any trench 5 feet deep or more needs a protective system — a trench box, shoring, or a slope cut back at the angle the soil type calls for — unless you're cutting through solid rock the whole way down. Past 20 feet, off-the-shelf tables don't cover you anymore; a registered professional engineer has to design the protection. And someone on site has to be the OSHA 'competent person' — trained to spot a failing wall, with the authority to pull the crew out, and required to inspect and log the trench every day and after every rain.

New York City piles a second layer on top of that. Under the NYC Building Code (Chapter 33, Safeguards During Construction) and DOB's excavation rule, 1 RCNY §3319-01, digging near an existing foundation or past a set depth can trigger a filed support-of-excavation plan and a special inspection — a second stamp above and beyond your OSHA competent person. Skip that filing and DOB can shut the hole down before it gets a foot deeper, addendum or no addendum.

This isn't background trivia for our board right now. Paving/Sitework is our third-most common trade tag with 17 open jobs, and a chunk of them — DOT drainage work, DEP water main tie-ins, DASNY renovation scopes with sub-grade utility work — carry trenching that never shows up as a line item in the RFP summary. It's buried in the plans, same as the risk.

Before you sign a number: name your competent person in writing, price an actual trench box or shoring system into the bid instead of hoping the soil holds, and check whether the depth or a neighboring foundation triggers a DOB filing you didn't carry in overhead. A willful OSHA citation tied to a fatality runs into six figures — that's not a line retainage covers.

Nobody bids the trench box. Everybody should.