On February 18, 2020, the audible alarm and light outside the Ammonia plant was activated at approximately 6:40 pm. The plant operator checked the NH3 (ammonia) readings and it read 43 ppm (parts per million). At 6:45 pm the readings increased to 51ppm and staff activated the Emergency Response Plan, contacted 911, the Chief Engineer,…...
Two persons received minor injuries from exposure to ammonia after a refrigeration system failed and released ammonia that was intended to be contained within the evaporator and refrigeration system. INCIDENT OVERVIEW The evaporator within a refrigeration system of an industrial food processing facility failed and released ammonia in a cold storage room. Two workers suffered…...
This new Instruction establishes OSHA’s field inspection and enforcement procedures designed to ensure uniformity when addressing respirable crystalline silica exposures in the workplace. These two new expanded health standards, general industry/maritime (29 CFR § 1910.1053) and construction (29 CFR § 1926.1153), were published in the Federal Register on March 25, 2016, and became effective June…...
Here is your scenario: You are evaluating a city water tank/tower. So you ask the following three questions… (1) Is large enough and so configured that an employee can bodily enter and perform assigned work; and (2) Has limited or restricted means for entry or exit (for example, tanks, vessels, silos, storage bins, hoppers, vaults,…...
This may cause anger in some, but it must be said in these crazy times… To claim any level of respiratory protection, the respirator MUST BE: NIOSH/MSHA approved, AND FIT-TESTED using an OSHA prescribed protocol, AND the user must be properly trained in its use and limitations. Thus a “face covering” that is NOT MANAGED…...
If you have not seen it yet, just wait and one of your anti-mask friends will be sure to share it with you. My phone blew up this weekend from e-mails, texts, and FB messengers from friends concerned with what they saw before their very eyes. I tried to explain what they were seeing, but…...
In recent years, offshore operators on the Outer Continental Shelf have reported multiple flash-fire incidents that resulted in injuries and damage to facilities. Investigations found that static discharge was a contributing factor in each of the incidents. Flash-fire incidents occurred during multiple types of operations, including maintenance on a control panel when natural gas was…...
In January 2020, a wheeled fire extinguisher failed to operate because of a blockage in the siphon tubing line. This failure resulted in two personnel requiring medical evaluation and led to a delay in extinguishing a fire. An investigation of the fire extinguisher failure found that the device pressured up as intended, but the moisture…...
A hydrogen leak originating from a tank within a high-pressure storage unit serving a hydrogen vehicle fueling station resulted in fire and explosion. Emergency responders were on scene within 7 minutes and contained the fire within 3hours. No damage was reported to the separate forecourt H2 dispenser or to other major station components within the…...
An ideal culture of safety is the engine that continues to propel the safety management system towards the goal of maximum safety and health, regardless of the leadership’s personality or current commercial concerns. Such an ideal is hard to achieve in the real world, but it is nonetheless a goal worth striving for. The power…...
Many people talk as if a safety culture can only be achieved through some awesome transformation akin to a religious experience. We take the opposite view, arguing that a safety culture can be socially engineered by identifying and fabricating its essential components and then assembling them into a working whole. It is undoubtedly true that…...
We all have one (1) common bias, psychologists call it the “fundamental attribution error.” The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional or personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations. And we have ALL DONE IT at some point in time after an accident. In fact,…...
