Liquid from construction site falls on vehicles

A Calgary man says his truck was splattered with an unidentified liquid that fell from a downtown construction site Monday.

Andrew Philip-Box's truck was parked on Ninth Avenue near Eighth Avenue Place downtown Monday afternoon.When he returned he found that a white liquid had already dried on his vehicle. At least five other vehicles were also splattered.

Philip-Box said a contract worker explained that the material was a fire retardant that had fallen from a nearby office tower that is under construction. But the contractor, EllisDon, said it was only dirty water, and it's investigating the incident.

Philip-Boxsays the construction company told him to go to a car wash at their expense.

"That's not my concern," Philip-Box said. "I don't know what this product is. It's pretty much covered my vehicle. I'm concerned. Should I even be washing this down the city water drains? There was no information provided on the actual product."

This is at least the third incident involving falling debris at the siteof the 49-storey tower.

On Aug. 10, a piece of falling metal hita woman'sSUV while she was driving. Thedriver was unhurt, and police said the lane the vehicle was in was supposed to be closed.

In April, high winds sent a piece of plywood crashing down from the same project. No one was hurt in that incident.

Debris from construction sites has been a continuingconcern in Calgary, especially after apiece of metal from another development fell and killed three-year-old Michelle Krsek last summer.

In an unrelated incident, a Calgary construction worker recently lost his job after he was shown on YouTube tossing a clamp while standing on scaffolding that was metres above street level.

Occupational Health and Safety has been concerned about the issue, said spokesman Chris Choden.

"We've had our senior management meet with the senior management of every large construction company in Calgary," he said.

"They've toured at least one site from each of those construction companies. We had a blitz of 23 inspections take place right away after the first fewincidents."