“OSHA has issued new enforcement guidance to make its penalties more effective in stopping employers from repeatedly exposing workers to life-threatening hazards or failing to comply with certain workplace safety and health requirements.” — Department of Labor press release, January 26, 2023 There are two common complaints about OSHA citations and fines after a fatal [...]
“You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.” — Daniel Keys Moran Last summer, we talked about the Chemical Safety Board’s compilation of incident data since their reporting rule became effective in March 2020. Companies experiencing catastrophic releases that result in one or more fatalities, one or more in-patient hospitalizations, [...]
“…made from all natural ingredients, so you know it’s safe.” — Brian Angliss, mocking an advertisement for an ED product I once had a roommate who would go off on a rant periodically about plastic that went like this: “Not natural?! What do you mean it’s not natural?! It’s made from petrochemicals, isn’t it? And [...]
“I don’t worry about a zombie apocalypse. Mainly because it’s unlikely, but also because I think I’d be pretty good in that type of emergency.” — Sarah Millican A couple of days ago at a plant here in St. Louis, a 55-gallon drum of acetone failed and released its contents. In the scheme of catastrophic [...]
“Eighty thousand pounds of muscle, blood, and steel in a pile. It’s spectacular.” — Gary Williams No plant in the chemical process industries wants to make the national news. The local news, where the plant’s scholarships for high school students is covered? Sure. But the national news? The only things that get national coverage are [...]
“It is with our passions as it is with fire and water; they are good servants but bad masters.” — Aesop A common trope of Hazard Communication training is for the instructor to share an SDS of “dihydrogen oxide” with the class and to review all the dangers of this “hazardous chemical”. Then, in a [...]
“There are two kinds of learning: experience, which is gained from your own mistakes, and wisdom, which is learned from the mistakes of others.” — John C. Maxwell The Chemical Safety Board is not an enforcement agency. So, it came as a shock to many when the CSB issued the Accidental Release Report Rule (40 [...]
“It always seems impossible until done.” — Nelson Mandela There are dozens of motivational posters available that encourage us all to believe that we can do the impossible. They intend to inspire us to reach for the stars. But there is also a dark side to achieving the impossible. It’s when the impossible we are [...]
“I don’t worry about the bullet with my name on it. Can’t do anything about that. It’s the bullet addressed to ‘Occupant’ that I worry about.” — Drew Schmidt I don’t get as much junk mail as I used to. Now, I get junk emails and junk texts. When I do get junk mail, however, [...]
“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” — Herodotus In 1912, one of the architects working on what is now known as the James A. Farley Building at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street in Manhattan convinced the [...]
