We have seen this life-threatening failure at least once or twice in our work! Most facilities have NO IDEA of how close they were to killing an employee. Some claimed it’s “common sense”, but trust me, these fatalities happen more often than most think. Hence, OSHA has required the following since its 1998 revision of…...
Employee #1, a warehouse operator, dropped his safety glasses into the compartment of a railroad tank car that was being filled with aerosol. The aerosol was blown through a line by low-pressure nitrogen (N2) gas. After Employee #1 notified coworkers and his supervisor, the material flow was turned off, but NOT the gas. Wearing an…...
I have been writing a lot about the hazards of using N2 and CO2 in occupied spaces without adequate safeguards. This fatal accident occurred inside what many will call an “instrument shack” within a chemical process. This room had a gas chromatograph machine that was NOT intrinsically safe, so it was within a “pressureized enclosure”…...
I think most people will agree that the safest form of travel is “flying commercially”. Yet this entails being in a tube with wings at 35,000 feet, flying at 400 mph, with 50,000 pounds of jet fuel. So how can an activity be so HAZARDOUS and yet be so LOW in RISKS? This is the…...
Whenever I facilitate a PHA for a client who is serious about the exercise, I always create a visual on a white board so the team can methodically discuss ALL the safeguards/barriers/controls that are present to PREVENT-PROTECT-MITIGATE the event being studied. It looks like this:… Membership Required You must be a member to access this...
The Respondent owns and operates a ferric chloride manufacturing facility, which maintains a maximum inventory of 3,000,000 pounds of the regulated toxic substance chlorine, as stated in the December 21, 2021, RMP that was submitted to and reviewed by EPA. Chlorine is a regulated toxic substance under Section 112 of the CAA with a threshold…...
Hazmat crews respond to propane tank leak in Suffolk Talk to anyone who deals with LPG, and they will tell you that we normally see an increase in leaking tanks this time of year. However, I believe we are seeing an increase in these events year after year. One speculation is that delivery businesses are…...
Last month, a city water worker was killed when a high-pressure water hose operating at around 1,000 psig struck the worker in the head. The police report used the phrase “the deceased had performed the task countless times and knew to keep his foot on top of the pressure line“. REPORT: Water crews responded to…...
Nitrogen (N2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are becoming very popular in food plants for a whole host of reasons. A number of years ago, we lost six workers to an N2 event at a food plant in GA. A look at OSHA data from 2020 to the present shows incidents involving N2 (see below). But…...
Two companies have been fined after two pest control contractors, 34 and 49, died while carrying out pest control work at a chicken factory on October 4, 2018. The men had entered an area full of concentrated nitrogen pumped from a chiller system. When the duo failed to return home from work the night before,…...
Since the standard says, “should not exceed” rather than “shall not exceed,” is the 140 dB level a recommendation or is compliance mandatory?… Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a member? Log in here...
OSHA has issued an updated enforcement policy for recording and reporting COVID-19 cases. This memorandum is to inform you that, effective immediately and until further notice, OSHA is exercising its enforcement discretion to NOT cite employers for violations of 29 CFR Part 1904 for failure to record COVID-19 cases or to report COVID-19 fatalities and…...
