“I have a horror of being in confined spaces.” — Hayley Mills At a craft distillery that is not too far from Bluefield’s offices, the owner spoke about his need to climb into the pot still to clean out the stillage, especially the spent grains. He saw me wince and said, “Yeah, I know. It’s [...]
“Obsolescence is a factor which says that the new thing I bring you is worth more than the unused value of the old thing.” – Charles Kettering I am the blacksmith at a historic village. I burn coke, coke I make right there on the forge. I start by laying bituminous coal around the coke [...]
“Ignorance is not too dangerous. If you combine it with power, then this is a toxic mix.” — Yuvai Noah Harari Not surprisingly, eighteen of the thirty incidents in Volume 3 of the Chemical Safety Board’s series on incident reports addressed incidents at refineries and large chemical complexes. One incident in Volume 3, though, was [...]
“We must be part of the general staff at the inception, rather than the ambulance drivers at the bitter end.” — Lane Kirkland Despite being established under the authority of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which has not been repealed, the Trump administration intends to discontinue funding the Chemical Safety Board as of [...]
“Tastes like heaven, burns like hell.” — Fireball slogan Tequila is a far cry from the cloying cinnamon-flavored spirit called Fireball. But they both have one thing in common: they burn like hell. Literally. As do all spirits. For reference, the flash point of 80 proof (40% ABV) spirits, is 26 C (79°F), meaning [...]
“You have to be prepared to take a spill.” — Shaun White Not long ago, a friend and I were watching a movie where one of the characters, despondent and bereft, stumbled down the street while clutching a bottle of spirits. As the character unlocked the door to his home, the bottle slipped from his [...]
“Complaints are prayers to the wrong god.” — Anne Lamott We live in a culture that actively discourages reporting problems. We’re told “Complain less, appreciate more,” “No one likes to listen to complaints,” and “Never complain and never explain.” And extreme cases, we’re reminded that “Snitches get stitches.” Yet there are dozens of requirements to [...]
“The ancient Greeks and Romans also held the view that acceptance is the beginning of wisdom.” — Simon Van Booy PHA teams often face the question of whether to address tank truck loading and unloading. On the one hand, trucks in transit are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), not the [...]
“What’s wrong with the car? What do you think’s wrong with the car? Damn thing’s broke.” — Richard Pryor When I was a poor college student, I wasn’t too poor to have an old beater of a car. It was paid for, but I could barely afford gas, much less proper maintenance. So, I tended [...]
“Few things happen in spite of the boss.” — unattributed An unsafe workplace isn’t necessarily the result of a poor safety culture. There are times when the organization wants to be safe but doesn’t know how. And by “organization,” I mean the people in the organization. Those are the situations where a safety professional can [...]
