OSHA finds 58 violations at Hoover Dam near Vegas

Inspectors for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration found violations in July and October that included lead contamination, electrical hazards, inadequate personal protective equipment and machinery guards, and the possibility that electric plant workers could be exposed to cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, according to a statement released Monday by OSHA regional chief Ken Atha.

None of the violations jeopardized the safety of the public or threatened the structural integrity of the dam or its operations, said Terry Fulp regional chief of the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the dam that forms Lake Mead. .

"We are taking the necessary steps to ensure the issues raised are fixed and do not happen again," Fulp said.

Other deficiencies stemmed from outdated design and improved safety awareness since the dam began producing power 77 years ago, according to officials with the OSHA office in San Francisco and Rose Davis, spokeswoman for the dam operations office in Boulder City, outside Las Vegas.

None of the approximately 250 workers at the dam and its hydropower plant was injured as a result of issues that OSHA identified, Davis said.

The dam was completed in 1936 and regulates the flow of the Colorado River. It holds back the Lake Mead reservoir, which supplies almost all the drinking water supply of Las Vegas, 30 miles away. Water released through the hydropower plant supplies farms, businesses and homes downstream. The hydropower plant provides electricity to some 1.3 million homes and businesses in California, Arizona and Nevada.