This is without a doubt one of the top ten questions we get each year… Can employee’s be fit-tested with facial hair stubble? And not to be a smart a_s about it, the answer is still the same… NO. OSHA has been consistent over the years and my dozen or so articles on the matter…...
As safety departments get squeezed for $, we are seeing a spike in a severe deficiency in a site’s respiratory protection training. I first got wind of this when a client I was scheduled to do some respiratory protection training for canceled the course. This is a client we provide other services for, so while…...
OSHA has cited five contractors for safety and health violations after three employees were fatally injured and two others critically injured following an explosion onboard a towboat in Kentucky. The five companies collectively received 55 of violations with proposed penalties totaling $795,254. OSHA cited a ship repair contractor, an insulation contractor, two temporary staffing companies…...
As some of you may recall the Post Office got hammered by OSHA some years ago, and from those inspections, OSHA asked for abatement across all post office locations. One of those items was related to heat stress, and I might add that already this summer we have seen another heat stroke fatality within the…...
This 2018 decision is a MUST read for all safety professionals who wish to question the requirement for “machine specific” isolation procedures for “complex processes” AND for those who want to understand the isolation expectation for entry into a PRCS. This business made two mistakes that run rampant in businesses when it comes to the…...
WARNING! NEVER, in your wildest dreams, EVER EVER do this!!!! But this video does show us the flammable properties of ammonia gas. Crazy I tell ya, just crazy – not to mention this is just NOT the way Hot Work was intended to be carried. SO MANY concerns – but I just wanted to demonstrate…...
This is a telling video, showing us the consequences of “slugging a compressor” with liquid anhydrous ammonia. I do not have the details of the event, but one would have to consider the cause being a “High Level” in the vessel the compressor is intending to pull vapor from. These vessels should have level control…...
At 4:45 p.m. on December 27, 2017, an employee was adding piping from a man-lift to a chemical tank when he struck a transducer on a nearby chemical tank containing tetra-methyl ammonium hydroxide. The employee was drenched and was able to lower the man-lift and get into the emergency wash station. Several co-workers assisted the…...
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Way back in the early 1990’s I learned a valuable lesson the “hard way,” and to this day, facility siting means something altogether different than how most view it. Those that work with me know I hate having combustibles such as empty pallets around chemical processes, especially flammable processes. But even non-flammable processes, such as…...
For many of us, it will be coming! Most states in the USA adopt the International Fire Code (IFC) as their Fire Code and HAZMAT Code; although most adopt a “revised” version of the IFC and most states run anywhere from 5-15 years behind the actual IFC. For example, my home state of OH just…...
