San Diego Gas and Electric informed contractors that one flagger had died and another was in critical condition after they drank water tainted with Fentanyl. Admitting that they ran the alert without checking its source, the utility pulled the alert from social media. A MasTec, Inc. subsidiary has also published a similar warning, but it is unknown if it was fabricated from outside of the company.
Last Wednesday, San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) sent out a warning to its contractors that claimed that a stranger gave two workers on a solar project a water bottle, and the incident alert said: “Apparently, the water bottles were laced with Fentanyl. Sadly, one of the flaggers died, and the other is in critical condition after ingesting the water.”
The following day, Precision Pipeline, a MasTec, Inc. company, sent a safety alert notification to its crew members that a competitor, NPL Pipeline Company, had an identical incident 2,000 miles away in a Chicago suburb.
The detailed notification above emphasized that the unfortunate event should serve “as a somber reminder of the potential dangers that can arise when accepting food or beverages from external sources while on the job. We cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining vigilance and being cautious of any offers from unknown individuals during project work.”
However, contractors immediately questioned SDG&E’s warning to identify the company that had the fatality, and they said they were having a verification blackout.
SDG&E spokesman Alex Welling told East County Magazine, “We have been working on this since yesterday, and we cannot verify the information. We sent out an alert to contractors; this is true. But after further information, we have been unable to verify the source.”
SDG&E’s social media posts have been removed.
Precision Pipeline did not respond to a request from Wireless Estimator for source verification, or if the union Wisconsin-based company did not issue the safety alert.
Although Precision Pipeline identified NPL Pipeline Company as the firm that employed the flaggers, there is no NPL Pipeline Company listed, but there is an NPL Construction firm.
On Facebook, that company said: “We are aware of a false report stating NPL employees were harmed after drinking drug-laced water offered to them by a member of the public. This information is entirely false. No NPL employees have been involved in any incident of this nature anywhere throughout the country. We are unsure where this story originated but can confirm no NPL employees have been harmed in this way.”