Recently a trade organization issued a guide on working in Permit Required Confined Spaces specific to their industry. The organization took a sentence from NFPA’s Guide on Confined Spaces (NFPA 350) and used it as justification to circumvent OSHA’s minimum standard on entry into PRCSs (1910.146 and 1926.1201-.1213).
l have received over a dozen questions regarding this “guide” and decided a visual aid could help define and show the difference between “Potential” and “No Potential.”
Permit-required confined space (permit space) means a confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics: (1) Contains or has a potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere; |
The issue at hand is working inside a PRCS that has a Highly Hazardous Chemical within it, but the chemical is inside coils within the space.
So here is my visual aid that I hope will help demonstrate what it means to have NO POTENTIAL for a HAZ ATM…