"One wrong step can end a worker's career or life," said Kay Gee, OSHA's acting area director in Manhattan. "We want to emphasize to all contractors the importance of supplying effective fall protection safeguards and training to their workers."
The intensive weeklong event, Feb. 14-20, will include more than 50 seminars ranging from one to three days in length on all manner of safety and health topics.
The Sept. 2-3 meeting will produce new treatment guidelines and guidance on identifying surge capacity for hospitals during a severe outbreak, said Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer.
Company officials announced Aug. 26 that the Institute, W.Va., plant will reduce its average inventory of highly toxic methyl isocyanate by 80 percent.
Managers at the cited companies in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi "have displayed a systemic indifference to the safety and health of their own employees, resulting in a dangerous work environment," said Cindy Coe, OSHA's regional administrator in Atlanta.
The fourth annual event will offer sessions on occupational safety and health management, OSHA compliance, risk reduction, crisis communication, environmental safety, hazards associated with stress-induced sleep deprivation and fatigue on the job, and more.
Among the citations contributing to the proposed penalties totaling $133,000, the firm is charged with two willful violations for failing to electrically test rubber insulated gloves at intervals not exceeding six months and failing to ensure that workers do not approach energized electrical equipment closer than two feet.
"There is an endless possibility of things that could have gone wrong here," said Petty Officer 2nd Class John Brooks, a boat coxswain at Coast Guard Station Gloucester. "But most likely they could have been run over by their own boats or their vessels could have collided with other mariners."
Comment are now due by Nov. 4 on EPA's proposed rule, which would change the familiar NRR labels on hearing protection devices. The rule takes new technologies and Internet sales of HPDs into account.
The Worker Protection Standard, part of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, contains requirements for the provision of pesticide safety training, decontamination supplies, and emergency medical assistance, as well as the notification of recent pesticide applications and the use of protective equipment.
Featured speakers at the IAFC event will include DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano; FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate; Ltc. Greg Gadson, a decorated Iraq war veteran and double amputee; and recently confirmed U.S. Fire Administrator Kelvin Cochran.
The repeat violations contributing to the proposed penalties totaling $144,900 included failing to provide guardrails on scaffolds at different working levels, provide access ladders and toe boards, and ensure all working levels were fully planked.
The Health and Safety Laboratory study, posted today by the Health and Safety Executive, included outdoor and indoor workers, laboratory measurements of real-world attenuation, and some premises visited without warning.
"OSHA standards require that circuits be de-energized before employees work on them and that appropriate personal protective equipment be supplied and used in those rare instances where de-energizing is not feasible," said Paul Mangiafico, OSHA's area director for Middlesex and Essex (Mass.) counties.
A new online guide from the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers' Health Committee can help to limit workers' exposures to the fluids, which can produce a variety of health effects, including contact dermatitis.
By Sept. 1, the 14-member committee will provide a letter report to CDC and OSHA addressing personal protective equipment needs for this crucial workforce.
I received a call recently from a large electric utility. A line worker, we'll call him Bill, had been badly burned while performing work near a 69kV piece of equipment. This incident illustrates several issues that a safety professional or engineer must consider in development of an electrical safety training and PPE program, two of which are not directly addressed in regulations or the consensus standards.
Although only introduced in 2007, ISO 16602 is already recognized and accepted internationally. It is clear that ISO 16602 will become the common global language for expressing CPC performance.
NIOSH recommends providing both PPE and hand washing facilities in its March 2009 "Approaches to Safe Nanotechnology" guidance document.
The potential for arc flash might not be on your mind day to day, but if you've ever seen one or heard about the effects, it's obvious that measures must be taken to minimize injury and circumvent a potentially fatal situation.