With the sad revelations coming out of the Slag Tank catastrophe and having spent time with my Dad a couple of weekends ago A thought just popped in my head… as a child my parents were constantly saying “I don’t care what Johnny is doing” and “if Johnny jumped off a bridge would you?” But as an adult I am teaching my kids the same principle- be true to your self and stay on the right path REGARDLESS of what others around you are doing. But after reading the Teco article today it dawned on me… we have it ass-backwards in safety. It seems that, regardless of our past experiences, we (as a company) will take risks because … “everyone else is doing it like that”.
This was a plant that had a similar accident in 1997 and modified the way they worked on the Slag Tank and put it in a procedure, only for the CEO to openly admit that “we assured ourselves we weren’t the only ones in the industry doing online slag tank maintenance, and we got ourselves comfortable with operating that way.”
I can still remember the day and the moment I learned that my good friend and colleague Chris Walters was killed back in 2010 when a company was “blowing down” a newly installed pipe using natural gas. The gas exited the pipe and collected in the court yard of the under construction power plant. It found an ignition source and exploded killing Chris (site safety rep) and four others. Why use NG, a highly flammable gas, as a “blowdown” gas rather than something less hazardous… “industry practice… everyone uses it”. At least from that tragedy, NFPA revised their codes so that NG is no longer an acceptable blowdown gas, but it was not soon enough to save Chris.
So when we as safety professionals hear the rationale for risky work – “that’s how everyone does it” or my favorite “that’s how we’ve done for XX years” – STOP and think about “industry practices”. These “industry practices” are a far cry from a RECOGNIZED AND GENERALLY ACCEPTED GOOD ENGINEERING PRACTICE(s) so let’s not be fooled or bullied into allowing these crazy stunts when we know they are unsafe. Be like your dad, or like my dad, and say “I don’t give a rat’s a_ _ what everyone else does” … we are leaders in safety – not followers to a grave!”
