The 30th annual UNC Winter Institute in St. Petersburg, FL is scheduled for February 14-19, 2010.  The Institute is designed for industrial hygienists, safety and environmental managers, occupational physicians and nurses and anyone else involved in EHS management.  There are about 30 courses covering everything from regulations to healthcare hazmat to environmental health, all eligible for recertification points toward your CHMM, CIH, CSP or other professional certs.

IESO will be there instructing Fundamentals of Environmental Health, and co-teaching two new courses, Managing Hazmat Responses in Healthcare and Environmental Health and Safety Management Systems in Healthcare.

Do you have structures with lightning protection?  Is it properly installed?  How can you tell?  While conducting a recent mock VPP audit, IESO discovered that a lightning protection system being installed did not comply with NFPA 780, the Standard for the Installation of Lightning Protection Systems.

Down-conductors were exposed inside the structure and improperly bonded to surrounding ground systems, which could have caused a sideflash during a strike.  Anchor points were set in mortar joints,

Philips Lighting in Danville, KY will develop and implement their OHSAS 18001 program using in-part the first-ever Bluegrass State Skills (BSSC) grant awarded for a health and safety management system.  The $25,000 grant from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development was the product of a cooperative effort between IESO and BSSC and their legal department.  Historically the grant program excluded health and safety from eligibility, but IESO successfully negotiated a great outcome for our client.

An article on Oil Spill Chemical Countermeasures recently published by Dr. Scott Harris, the Senior Risk Manager at IESO, LLC, appears in the July-August newsletter from the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC OSHERC).  The NC OSHERC is one of 17 regional education centers established by NIOSH to develop and support safety and health professionals, and is part of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

IESO, LLC recently published an arc flash article (http://iesollc.com/wordpress/2009/06/22/arc-flash-safety-history-and-requirements/) on our website.  We continue to recommend the rigorous analysis proscribed by IEEE 1584, and warn against “quickie” or generic solutions.  This safety alert illustrates a real-world example of why that is.

An industrial facility recently asked IESO, LLC to evaluate arc flash results from another consultant who reportedly used a customized program developed in-house.  The facility management team was concerned about the lack of time that the consultant spent on-site (less than five hours), the minimal review of electrical components and the generic results.  Labels for all electrical components were identical whether for buss plugs, MCC panels or substation switchgears, and the facility staff had serious doubts that they got what they paid for.

History and Awareness

Arc flash was first identified by Dr. Ralph Lee in his 1982 “The Other Electrical Hazard: Electric Arc Blast Burns.”  Dr. Lee found that as many as 80% of electrical injuries resulted from arc flash rather than from shock, which had always been thought to be the major risk associated with live electrical work.

By 1990 the threat of arc flash was well established, and OSHA updated 29 CFR 1910 Subpart S to recognize the need for arc flash safety.  NFPA 70E, the Electrical Safety Workplace Standard, was revised to include the calculations necessary to establish arc flash protection boundaries, and equipment manufacturers began to offer arc-resistant switchgear as a means to minimize arc flash hazards.

Some insurance companies, for example IF Group (http://www.if-insurance.com/web/industrial/Pages/default.aspx), recently added a “Plastics in Construction” clause to their coverage requirements for industrial clients.  They are concerned about composite panels with combustible isolation materials such as polyurethane (PU), polystyrene (EPS) or polyisocyanureate (PIR), and indicate recent severe losses related to this.

In the case of IF Group, the new clause is still a recommendation, but it looks certain to become a requirement, since they are already referring to it as a “regulation.”  Other Carriers may or may not follow suit, but if they see risk or exposure on the issue, expect them to aggressively manage it with this or a similar tool.  Either way, none of us want plastics fires in the workplace, and those that have seen them especially understand that.

Independent audits and reviews are one very good way of evaluating a program objectively and accurately to determine vulnerabilities and risk. These plans and programs come in many forms and serve many purposes, ranging from EPA and OSHA compliance and Emergency Action Plans to Risk Management Plans, Worst-case Scenarios and Off-site Consequence Analysis to SPCC and RCRA contingency plans.

A related critical risk management tool follows an environmental incident, such as a spill or explosion, and is frequently referred to as an Emergency Response Review or “Hotwash.” Following the review, you may be asked to develop a “lessons learned” or “after-action report” to help do the job better and safer the next time. EPA or other Agencies often require this following an emergency response in which they were involved.