Permit Required Confined Spaces

At 4:41 p.m. on July 24, 2020, Employees #1 and #2 set a 32-foot ladder into an eight-and-a-half-foot manhole that was connected to the main city sewer line station. Employee #1 entered the manhole and was immediately overcome by hydrogen sulfide gas, Employee #2 entered and was also overcome by the gas…. Membership Required You...

At 11:30 a.m. on July 9, 2020, Employees #1 and #2 and their foreman, employed by a waste management company, were installing a closed-circuit television (CCTV) into an 8-inch sewer line to enable inspections in the manhole. They did NOT test the atmosphere before attempting to enter the manhole, which met the definition of permit-required…...

One of the things that drive me INSANE during an audit or hazard assessment is a PRCS rescue team that is equipped only with SCBA’s.  To this day, I have ALWAYS been able to find an entry portal that is too small for a rescuer wearing an SCBA to pass through.  It then takes me…...

I have been working with a client on developing their PRCS Rescue team and of course, we get to the final phase, training the team, and the questions begin with how long is the training.  Now, the topic of training and its time commitment was discussed a long time ago; even before they decided they…...

As we have discussed before, several years ago a governor of the great state of Washington passed a bill that required all the state’s codes and standards to be written in “everyday language” and oh how I love this approach.  Even career safety professionals can struggle to try to decipher what Federal OSHA is really…...

I was having your run-of-the-day safety conversation with one of my favorite former OSHA safety engineers and he was quick to point out that one of my articles was not technically “compliant” with OSHA’s 1910.146 requirements when it came to the means we can use to isolate a Permit-Required Confined Space (PRCS).  The means he…...

Unlike a PRCS that contains ONLY physical hazards, a space containing an atmospheric hazard cannot be reclassified as a non-permit space. However, if the atmospheric hazard in the PRCS can be controlled by FORCED AIR VENTILATION, we may enter under the CONTROLLED ATMOSPHERE instead of with full permit space procedures. The alternate procedures may be…...

When can a PRCS be reclassified and how must one go about doing it?  This is taken directly from an OSHA publication, but what caught my eye is this publication makes it clear that BOTH “reclassification” and the “alternative entry” methods can be used at the same time for the same PRCS!  Pay close attention…...

An OSHA safety investigation has found another rail car products and services provider did not follow federal safety standards for working in permit-required confined spaces after two workers died from inhaling toxic fumes. OSHA determined that an employee became unresponsive after entering a natural gasoline rail car with the intent of cleaning the space on…...

A construction company has been fined $14,400 after all three (3) employees were killed while working on a utility project. The three employees, 48, 21, and 43, all of whom were killed on August 25, 2020, in an accident while working about 20 feet below ground inside a manhole. They died from asphyxia associated with…...