On March 9, 2009, Employee #1 was testing a newly-installed 6 in. steel fire protection water main. When it was pressurized with air, a 6 in. pipe cap flew off the end of the pipe and struck Employee #1’s forehead, killing him. Violations/Penalties Serious Total Initial Violations 5 5 Current Violations 3 3 Initial Penalty […]
On May 4, 2013, Employee #1, a 40-year-old male construction worker was blinded by a test plug that burst while conducting a leak test on a new 4″ diameter sewer line which was made of cast iron. Employee #1 said that he inserted a 2″ diameter by 2′ long test plug into the new cast
Employee #1 was a maintenance technician at a company that performs epitaxial processes for semiconductor manufacturing. He reported to work in the fabrication area and was briefed by a coworker, also a maintenance technician, about the day’s projects. After a few minutes, other workers began to smell a strong chemical odor, and some saw a
At approximately 7:30 a.m. on November 2, 2007, a technician in building Number II was conducting weld-penetration tests with a chemical solution containing 95-percent ethyl nitric acid (70-percent concentration). An old container of the solution in a storage can that had been stored on a bottom shelf fell and broke when the lower shelf in
At approximately 9:30 a.m. on April 24, 2019, an employee was receiving a chemical. The vendor connected the nitric acid to the chlorine tank. Because it was mislabeled, it caused a reaction with a cloud that affected seven (7) other employees.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s Gulf of America Region identified a potential risk involving compressed gas cylinders across the Outer Continental Shelf in 2024 and 2025. During this period, multiple explosions were reported to the bureau and were linked to cylinder failures. Several of the explosions were severe, causing injuries and damage to
With this week’s event in Japan, where the roofs of the flammable liquid storage tanks were blown off, I shared OSHA’s “emergency venting” requirements to explain why the roofs were off the tanks, which sparked a lot of sidebar discussions. Sizing these emergency venting options is quite easy, as I explain in this article with
As I say each year, the International Fire Code (IFC) is being used in 42 states, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico. This code, dating all the way back to 1993 when I began my career in chemical processing, has always required much of what we apply in OSHA PSM/EPA RMP to processes that operate FAR
Yes, both terms essentially mean the same thing, but they refer to very different hazardous atmospheres. LEL, or Lower Explosive Limit, applies to gases and Vapors. MEC, which is Minimum Explosive Concentration, deals with Combustible Dusts. Here are some other differences:
I used AI, specifically Gemini Plus and Super Grok, to create this image from an OSHA Case File, and I was impressed. Now the image is going to be shocking, but this is a very good depiction of what was described in the case file. And I’ll bet a burger and a beer that this
I was recently involved with an organization that had an issue with overpressuring a 330-gallon plastic tote during their evacuation of their HHC/EHS for process work. So we had a nice discussion about the DIFFERENCE between “draining” and “venting”. The chemical in question is normally a “gas” but is stored as a liquid under pressure.
