“Habits are safer than rules; you don’t have to watch them. And you don’t have to keep them, either. They keep you.” —Frank Crane You’ve done it! You found a way to operate your process without ever going over the 10,000 lb threshold quantity for flammable liquids or gases. You’ve found substitutes for the toxic [...]
“I just let emotion dictate what the arrangement is.” Jeff Buckley, singer-songwriter Emotion is a great way to approach the arrangement of music. As an approach to the arrangement of hazards in a facility that processes highly hazardous chemicals, however, it leaves a lot to be desired. So, OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard demands that [...]
“There is no worse place … to be than on Page 1, above the fold in your daily newspaper.” Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency When high profile disasters happen, incidents with a lot of media coverage, I’ve noticed that news organizations make a point of reporting how many OSHA citations [...]
“Have you ever noticed when something bad happens, people automatically look for someone to blame?” Amy Roberts I’m not a structural engineer, which means that I’m not qualified to comment on what went wrong when the pedestrian bridge at Florida International University collapsed on Thursday, March 15, 2018. I didn’t work on the design or [...]
“If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.” Stephen Covey When you think of workplace safety, what comes to mind? We tend to associate safety with hardhats and safety glasses. However, workplace safety is influenced by factors beyond the proper use [...]
“We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.” – Lyndon B. Johnson In LOPA, the role of people can be broken down into three categories: Victims, villains, and heroes. Access control serves not only to reduce the number of victims but also restrict access for villains. [...]
“Issuance of this Citation does not constitute a finding that a violation of the Act has occurred.” —from OSHA Citation and Notification of Penalty On October 29, 2011, a grain elevator explosion in Atchison, Kansas killed six men—four employees and two grain inspectors. OSHA cited the Bartlett Grain Company’s facility and proposed a fine of [...]
“The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.” Fyodor Dostoevsky OSHA does not require fire extinguishers. Not in most work places. The fire extinguishers that are in most work places are there because of insurance requirements. To use a fire extinguisher requires going [...]
On July 31st, the Department of Labor (DOL) submitted seven OSHA sponsored information collection requests (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval titled: "Rigging Equipment for Material Handling," "Hydrostatic Testing Provision of the Portable Fire Extinguishers Standard," "Requirements for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Training Institute Education Centers [...]
Just when you were getting used to the new levels of fines from OSHA, they’ve increased again. The Federal Register just published new fines for the Department of Labor, including new fines for OSHA. The fines for willful violations will increase 1.64%, from $124,709 to $126,749, while the maximum penalty for most citations will go [...]
