Posts Tagged ‘prevention’

Chemical Safety Board on budget chopping block

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017

Photo: Chemical Safety Board

One of President Trump’s key campaign promises was to keep Americans safe, but apparently that promise should come with an asterisk. The news that the Chemical Safety Board is on the budget chopping block contradicts that promise – unless by “safe” we are only talking about threats from sources external to our borders.

The 40-employee Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is the only independent government agency that investigates industrial chemical disasters, issuing reports and safety recommendations to benefit industries throughout the nation. It issues no fines or penalties and makes no rules. Its investigations and reports also identify weaknesses in emergency planning and response that have preventative value not just for workers but also for the communities surrounding potentially hazardous work sites. Its annual budget of around $11 or 12 million is minuscule, particularly when measured against the enormous human and financial toll that a single chemical industrial disaster can inflict.

The Houston Chronicle doesn’t mince any words when talking about the impact of the agency’s demise: ‘Death and destruction’ expected as Trump moves to gut Chemical Safety Board

“A White House proposal to eliminate funding for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board signals a full retreat from two decades of progress against chemical disasters and would, if enacted, put American lives in jeopardy, health and safety experts said.

While little known to the masses, the CSB is to chemical disasters what the much better-funded National Transportation Safety Board is to airline crashes, train derailments and bridge collapses. Without the recommendations that come from these boards, preventable accidents repeat themselves.”

Texas is no stranger to chemical catastrophes. The CSB was instrumental in investigating the 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery that killed 15 and the 2013 explosion at the West Fertilizer Company that rocked the small town of West, Texas. That incident killed 5, injured more than 250 and damaged 150 buildings.

In Trump Budget Would Eliminate Chemical Safety Board, Jack Kaskey and Jennifer A. Dlouhy of Insurance Journal also highlight the important role that the CSB plays in investigating accidents, and offers several concrete examples of industry recommendations that enhanced safety practices in dangerous industries.

“The CSB makes no rules and issues no penalties, but often identifies dangerous industry practices that are overlooked by enforcement agencies. Its scope of responsibility has included multi-fatality disasters from a 2013 fertilizer distributor in West, Texas, to BP Plc’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blowout in 2010.

CSB probes have led to many industry improvements that have saved lives without gaining public notice, said Michael Wright, director of health, safety and environment for the United Steelworkers of America. After a 2012 fire at a Chevron Corp. refinery in Richmond, California, the CSB discovered that the pipe used was subject to corrosion and rupture because of the materials it carried. Though there were no rules against using that kind of pipe, the industry changed its practice because of the CSB, Wright said in a phone interview.”

The CSB issued this statement in response to news of the cuts:

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is disappointed to see the President’s budget proposal to eliminate the agency. The CSB is an independent agency whose sole mission is to investigate accidents in the chemical industry and to make recommendations to prevent future accidents and improve safety. For over 20 years, the CSB has conducted hundreds of investigations of high consequence chemical incidents, such as the Deepwater Horizon and West Fertilizer disasters. Our investigations and recommendations have had an enormous effect on improving public safety. Our recommendations have resulted in banned natural gas blows in Connecticut, an improved fire code in New York City, and increased public safety at oil and gas sites across the State of Mississippi. The CSB has been able to accomplish all of this with a small and limited budget. The American public is safer today as a result of the work of the dedicated and professional staff of the CSB. As this process moves forward, we hope that the important mission of this agency will be preserved.

 

Here are just a few other notable CSB investigations we recall:

Other commentary on the proposed elimination of CSB

 

 

California: Do Government Safety Programs Really Work?

Monday, January 30th, 2012

The Rand Corporation has published a study of California OSHA’s prevention programs, which are mandated by state law. Despite enough caveats to sink a battleship, the study does illuminate, if only for brief glimpses, a path for establishing truly effective safety and prevention programs.
History and Ideology
First, a little background on California OSHA. In the 1970s, the state as big as a country implemented its own OSHA inspection program. In 1987 a Republican governor trimmed the budget by eliminating CAL/OSHA, leaving the feds to take over the program. Gee, guess how that worked out…Two years later, CA took back the program. Over the next few years, the legislation evolved, resulting eventually in a requirement that all CA employers implement an Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) with the following key elements:
– Identification of hazards and risks
– Training programs for employees in managing those risks
– Periodic hazard surveys to determine effectiveness of hazard mitigation
– Documentation of training and hazard surveys
IIPP being a state-sponsored program, state government had to train and disperse field inspectors to determine whether employers were in compliance. That raises two very big problems: first, the scale of the effort: with 700,000 employers in the state, inspectors can only perform about 8,000 inspections per year. Equally important, with limited time on site, inspectors lack the tools, training and time to measure the actual effectiveness of an employer’s IIPP.
Elements in Good Safety Programs
IIPPs mandate that employers implement the key elements of good safety programs:
– Workers know the employer’s point person for safety
– Workers know how to report hazards
– Workers with good safety records are rewarded
– workers with poor safety records are disciplined
– hazards and risks are analyzed on an ongoing basis
– identified hazards are mitigated in a timely manner
– training is ongoing
As any astute reader can surmise, there is a huge gap between developing a written program with the above elements and actually implementing it. A nice cottage industry arose in California, where employers could buy an IIPP program off the shelf – and promptly store the binder, unopened, on a shelf. A written program does not a safety program make.
Does the CAL/OSHA Program Work?
So what did the Rand researchers find? Does the CAL/OSHA program prevent injuries? Is it effective?
Well, sort of, kind of, not really, we’re not sure…
By the time you sort through the caveats – the impact of an unstable economy, the under-reporting of injuries by small employers, the lack of specificity in inspection visits, etc – you have very little conclusive evidence one way or the other. When visiting employers for the first time, inspectors consistently found that they were out of compliance, lacking written plans and evidence of an effective safety program. When making a second visit, especially after an injury, the results improved; there is nothing better than a serious injury to revitalize a safety program. Alas, two years after an inspection, there is no measurable lasting benefit to the program. [It is important to note, however, that unionized workforces had a more sustained and effective focus on safety than non-union environments – fodder for the ideologues, for sure.]
The Role of Government in Safety
The Rand study raises a number of compelling issues and is well worth the reading. In the final analysis, the study points out the limits of any state intervention. To be sure, inspectors could spend more time on site; they could do more qualitative analysis of the written documentation and interview a good sample of the workers. But these steps would still likely result only in incremental and relatively minor improvements.
We would all probably agree that a commitment by a company’s senior management is essential: safety must be a priority in all operations. We would also agree that the above key elements belong in any effective safety program. Finally, we all recognize that safety consciousness must be embedded into a company’s standard operating procedures.But that’s the ideal: what happens in the real world?
Where inspections reveal ineffective safety programs, where employers exploit workers and put them at risk, systematic fines and penalties are certainly in order. Such penalties are an effective means of getting an employer’s attention. Once you have that attention, it is at least feasible that employers will see the benefits of making safety a priority and eliminating workplace hazards. Government cannot make it happen, but without government, far too many employers would lack the motivation to maintain a safe workplace.
In the long run, effective safety programs are cheaper and more efficient – more profitable! – than a workplace fraught with unnecessary and unacceptable risks. At least, that’s the theory and a core belief of this blog. In practice these days, with predatory employment practices on the rise, one begins to wonder…

Cool Tools: OSHA safety videos for construction

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Falls in Construction – Reroofing

In Spanish: Caidas en la Construccion/Reparacion del Techo
Sprains and Strains in Construction/Pulling Cables

In Spanish: Torceduras y Desgarres en la Construccion/Tendido de Cables
Struck-by Accidents in Construction/Swinging Cranes

In Spanish: Golpes Causados por Accidentes en Construccion/Gruas en Movimiento

Grain Bin Safety

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

The National Corn Growers Association and the National Grain and Feed Foundation – the research and education arm of the National Grain and Feed Association – recently unveiled a joint video project to promote awareness about grain bin safety on the farm. The two organizations teamed up in November 2010 to develop the video in response to an increase in U.S. fatalities and injuries associated with entry into grain bins.
It’s pretty powerful. The video, shot on location in several states, provides a wide range of information on prevention tips and background data on grain bin accidents. The project also involved interviews with professionals in the fields of grain bin safety research and rescue.
The producers are hoping to get this in the hands of as many farmers as possible and are making DVD copies of the grain bin safety video available for ordering.

Safety@Work Creative Awards 2008

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Creative work safety contests are somewhat rare but they can be a great way to get kids and young people thinking about workplace safety early. We were happy to see that this year’s winners in the Safety@Work Creative Awards for digital animation and poster design were recently announced.
Safety@Work Creative Awards is sponsored by the Workplace Safety and Health Council and Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd in collaboration with Ministry of Manpower. The awards are designed to showcases local students’ creative talents in advocating the importance of safety at the workplace. The competition was open to all full-time students enrolled in tertiary institutes in Singapore, including ITEs, polytechnics, universities, as well as art academies, colleges and institutes. This year, there was a specific focus on fall prevention, which students could interpret as falls from heights or falling objects.
Here are the winning safety posters for 2008. They are very clever, and available for downloading. And be sure to scroll down the page to see winners from past years.
Here are the video clips of animation winners:
Gold – Life is Short
Silver – Falling bricks
Bronze – The Cleaner
Judge’s Choice Award – Safety harness
Here are a few winners from last year:
Take the lead – first prize
How do you protect yourself? – second prize
Take the lead – Third prize
It’s your safety – commendation
Dance – take the lead – commendation
Baa – commendation

Health Wonk Review, scaffold survivor update, hand protection, and potential cancer cluster

Friday, June 13th, 2008

Jane Hiebert White has posted a great edition of Health Wonk Review: Washington Week at Health Affairs – and she notes that this issue coincides with Academy Health’s Annual Research Meeting held in DC this past week, a gathering based on the concept that health policy should be informed by research. In this HWR issue, one of the major themes centers on health care reform. It’s worth your time to check it out – it may be one of our biggest and most substantive issues yet.
Survival story – at the beginning of the year, we posted about miracle survivor Alcides Moreno who lived through a NY scaffolding collapse which sent him plummeting 47 stories. Today, the New York Post features a story about Moreno entitled 47-story guy walking tall. But not all the news associated with this story is good: his brother who was also on the scaffold was killed in the fall. Earlier this week, The New York Times covered the OSHA report about the accident, which found fault with City Wide Window Cleaning, the service that employed the Morenos, and Tractel, the firm that had repaired the scaffold.

OSHA issued five citations against City Wide for what it called serious violations. Three carried proposed fines of $7,000 apiece, the highest the agency can impose. One was for lack of a system to protect against falls — cables that would have left the Morenos dangling at the top of the building when the scaffold gave way.

Another citation against City Wide was for failing to train employees in how to inspect the scaffold, and for not training them to wear “personal protective equipment” before they stepped onto the rig. The article lists other charges against both companies. Commenting about the fines imposed, the Daily News editorializes that death comes cheap, noting that, “Financial penalties like that are meaningless as a deterrent to corner-cutting by contractors.”
Hand injury prevention – According to an article on hand injuries by Don Groce in Occupational Hazards, gloves can prevent injuries and reduce costs. Recent research shows that “The cost of hand injuries in just one sector of the construction industry is six times what it would cost those employers to offer every employee appropriate hand protection.” This preventive measure represents potential to reduce pain, reduce lost productivity, and save dollars. According to the CDC, hand injuries account for more than a million emergency department visits by U.S. workers per year. Groce’s article also discusses advances in glove manufacturing and various types of safety glove alternatives.
Dupont cancer cluster? – Celeste Monforton of The Pump Handle raises the question of whether there is a cancer cluster associated with Dupont in response to 19 cases of rare carcinoid tumors among DuPont employees, with 6 of the cases surfacing among workers at the Washington Works plant in West Virginia. She reports that adverse health effects have been associated with exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA or C8), the chemical used to make Teflon and other non-stick surfaces.

Eye safety and eye health on the job

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

If today is an average day, more than 2,000 people will have an eye injury at work. And tomorrow, the risk is even greater because the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says that more eye injuries occur on Wednesdays than any other day of the week. While many eye injuries will be relatively minor, about 5 percent will be debilitating enough to interfere with work on a short or a long-term basis. According to BLS, more than 36,000 eye injuries require time off from work. Yet with proper eyewear, it is estimated that 90% of these injuries could be prevented. Approximately 3 out of 5 of the injured workers were either wearing no eye protection whatsoever or were wearing the wrong type of eye protection.
This month is a good time to redouble your eye safety efforts since May is Healthy Vision month. Most eye injuries were surface wounds, injuries resulting from being struck by foreign matter such as splinters or chips. The second most common type of injuries are abrasions and scratches, and the third most common are chemical burns. A 2002 BLS report on Nonfatal Occupational Injuries Involving the Eyes offers more detail on the nature of work eye injuries and the types of professions where injuries are most prevalent.
Special worker populations and eye safety
When you audit your workplace for eye safety, don’t forget eye protection for outdoor and seasonal workers, such as groundskeepers. Outside work can involve dust and flying objects, such as chips from mowers and clippers. Exposure to UV rays is another hazard, and one that requires head coverings with a visor and eyewear that limits UV rays.
Another group of workers that are often overlooked for eye safety are computer users. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reports that 75% of computer users surveyed report occasional aching or burning eyes at work. The Lighting Blog offers a good list of 22 ways to reduce eye strain at your computer.
Eye safety resources
Eye protection in the workplace – from OSHA
Eye safety – from NIOSH
Types of eye protection – illustrated examples – from the CDC
First aid – from the CDC
Wise Owl Program – from Prevent Blindness
Workplace Eye Safety – from Prevent Blindness
Ten Ways to Prevent Eye Injuries at Work – from Prevent Blindness
Eye Safety for emergency response and disaster recovery – from the CDC

Weblog roundup: exit interviews, settlements, tort reform, & disease prevention

Friday, July 9th, 2004

George Lenard reminds us that exit interviews are important and points us to this sample exit interview from Workforce.
Ronald Ryan tells us how workers compensation settlements are calculated in Michigan.
Are personal injury lawyers in Pennsylvania looking to workers comp after tort reform? A cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice liability cases seems to have attorneys looking for other sources of income. Thanks to Judge Robert Vonada at PAWC for the article.
The Harvard Center for Disease Prevention features a series of online medical risk assessment tests that help you determine your risk for the big 5 – cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and stroke. We found this via Research Buzz, an excellent site by Tara Calishain that covers the world of Internet research.