Safety

[mostlyharmless]

What I am after is : how is it done where you work,what do you think works better? I also think we can learn from each others  personal experiences. Also if you are a safety professional,what career paths are available?
This is not about telling the worst story like steam line ruptures or electrical arcs, but certainly do not hesitate to share. This is an attempt to bring safety a bit forward in thinking and discussion.

[Chimera]

My point is that the reasons employees decide to behave unsafely are as varied as the employees themselves and the environment in which they work and cannot be lumped under the aforemention reasons (B-S-E).

Scenario 1 - blaming the supervisor does not bring the dead back to life.  The laborer behaved unsafely, I never said it was his fault.  The supervisor played a role, but ignorance was the real culprit.

Scenario 2   The carpenter chose to work unsafely, and yes, risk her life, because she thought to do otherwise would cost her money that was needed by her family..  Unfortunately, this happens too often.

BTW, neither scenario is hypothetical.  Simplified yes, but both certainly happened.

Also, The VP at DCPP participates in the investigation of recordables (house and contractor) and visits the site where the event occurred.  Other sites have the same level of oversight.

Your paragraph quoted above that begins with "Also, . . ." pretty much sums up my problems with most safety programs I've observed over the years.  "They visit the site where the event occurred."  I would much rather have the safety guy and/or his representatives, the site managers and even the Vice President visit those sites before the event occurrs.  We can preach in the pre-job meetings and hang all the posters we want but the real impact is when those guys are out there on the job site observing and leading by their own example.

I don't need some after-the-fact dude preaching to me.  Get in the mix with me and show me.  Stop me before I cut that corner while in the thick of the "battle" at the job site and it will stick with me longer and better.

Good judgement comes from bad situations which were usually caused by bad judgement.

Take off that tie.  Get off your collective butts.  Get out there on the job.  Preempt that next case of bad judgement and reinforce the "safety culture" you really want.

I like to consider myself as being fairly safety conscious.  However, I know that consciousness comes from both witnessing and being involved in scenarios that did not go as planned.  That is what I preach to my crew - both in the meetings and on the job - every day.  And, because I'm there involved in their work and leading with my own personal examples, they learn without having to experience the bad judgements that I went through.

Okay.  I'll get off my soap box now.

Mike

[WTF]

Spot on. I am a safety manager for a drill shaft company. Our bigger jobs are installing foundation shafts for the SCR/FGD environmental projects at coal burners. We work in a at risk environment all day, every day. I have no safety pros under me, as I am the safety department. My time in the field is about 97%. The other 3% is the admin stuff, as I do not have any clerical help. WAAAAAA I would like some female companion! I couch workers, argue with management, and try to accommodate the client all day long. Just my presence keeps the workers thinking safety. Our crew is great, our RIR is zero, and our EMR is zero. Not bad for bring here for two years and working 6/12's. Workers MUST respect the safety department in order to work safe. Again, SPOT ON DUDE 

[RDTroja]

Spot on. I am a safety manager for a drill shaft company. Our bigger jobs are installing foundation shafts for the SCR/FGD environmental projects at coal burners. We work in a at risk environment all day, every day. I have no safety pros under me, as I am the safety department. My time in the field is about 97%. The other 3% is the admin stuff, as I do not have any clerical help. WAAAAAA I would like some female companion! I couch workers, argue with management, and try to accommodate the client all day long. Just my presence keeps the workers thinking safety. Our crew is great, our RIR is zero, and our EMR is zero. Not bad for bring here for two years and working 6/12's. Workers MUST respect the safety department in order to work safe. Again, SPOT ON DUDE 

I just love a good Freudian slip.

[Mike McFarlin]

Wonder what he really meant?

[mostlyharmless]

We just had an HPI audit from folks across the industry,nuclear that is, and I understand that commercial is using HPI a lot more than doe. Is this true? How about BBS? Please see HPI and BBS topics. Please post there.
The purpose of this forum topic is to describe the safety culture at the place where you work. What formal or informal tools are used? Also to share experiences and lessons learned. If you are a safety professional please describe possible carear paths and any training or education to get there, and what is the job ( and title) like.
All this being said please don't limit the discussion. Complain, warn, bragg, I don't care as long as you talk about safety. Make new topics if you want, but please post. What I see so far is very good.
I myself would like to know more about the math behind safety analysis, and what goes into a TSR or AB. I know a lot of work goes into it but I woulds like to know more specifically how it is done.
Thank you for your posts and though the subject is serious and often sounds like a cliche, please don't hesitate to add some humor.  MH

[mostlyharmless]

Over 5900 views. Post,post and more post. See previous post.

[mostlyharmless]

If we were talking about gay safety,safety in the navy,or gay safety in the navy.Road tech vs.house tech safety.Womens safety,or transvestite house techs formerly in the navy that want to go on the road, I bet there would be more posts. I realize the subject is not as fun as a good complaint or a clever shot at someone, but you can still show off your intellect and add to the collection of information this site represents and make the community as a whole better. Sound good? Sound like bs? Help me out here. I know its a big world, I,ve been there. And I met a lot of bright people there, so post. If not registered then do so and post.
Why won't sharks eat Bruce? Professional courtesy. Just kidding, thought I would redirect for a second. I know, its an old lawyer joke but I like it. And I never met Bruce. Don't post about Bruce here please. Its 0130 on my third night into my shift and I am digressing rapidly. Breaking my own rule of not posting while  sleep deprived . MH

[HydroDave63]

Workers MUST respect the safety department in order to work safe.

You WILL respect my auth-or-i-tah!

[Chimera]

Workers MUST respect the safety department in order to work safe. Again, SPOT ON DUDE 

I've stewed on this comment for a while, but I'm going to comment on it anyway.

Respecting the safety department has nothing to do with working safe.  Respecting the real and potential hazards in the workplace has everything to do with working safe.  If the safety department isn't out there in the workplace, they garner no respect - and deservedly so.  The "safety guy" on my current project is great at running off at the mouth but does nothing to reinforce safety or a safety culture.  What he does would be tantamount to me telling the workers they are in a contaminated area and they'd better put up a rope and some signs - and then walking away.

By the same token, I would have no reason to expect my crew to have any respect for me if I attempted to run the job from my desk and/or if I rushed in with my critiques after the fact.  They listen because I'm there with them.  I attempt to head off bad situations with whatever advice I can offer based on my own experiences in similar situations and my knowledge of the job(s) they're covering.  Additionally, I freely praise them for doing good work and exercising personal initiative - even if that initiative is exercised after first discussing the situation with me.  I trust their judgement and they trust mine only because we work together as a team.  Again, if I tried to do that while sitting on my butt in my office, they wouldn't listen or respond near as well - and I would have no good reason to expect them to.

I don't think it matters too much which "safety system" is used.  What does matter is that whatever that system is, it must be conscientiously applied in the field and continuously reinforced every day.  Waiting until someone slips and falls in an oil spill is not "safety".  Safety is being there to get the spill cleaned up before someone slips and falls . . . or loses their hearing or a finger or falls or starts a fire or runs into a scaffold pole or any number of the thousands of thinks that could occur every day on the job.  Once the workers start to see that, then they will begin to respect the safety department because they will realize that safety is really their job and not just their job title.

[RAD-GHOST]

I believe the street expression is...... "The Say'er vs. the Players"!

, you got'z to quit drinking the Kool-Aid

RG!

[kp88]

I don't think it matters too much which "safety system" is used.  What does matter is that whatever that system is, it must be conscientiously applied in the field and continuously reinforced every day.

Agreed.  The moment the Safety Department utters the words "not required by OSHA" in response to a concern, the "safety system" loses a lot of credibility.  Nobody in Radiation Protection is running around saying that it's alright to pick up 4.9 Rem, even though it is allowed by the NRC.

[Already Gone]

That's a really good point.  When you think about it, radiation is the easiest hazard to handle from a risk perspective.  It is one of the few hazards where exposure can be mathematically correlated to risk -- even if the relationship is not linear.  You can measure exposure rates and cumulative exposure.  Therefore, you can anticipate, mitigate, and control the risk on any particular task.
There are other hazards, like noise, lead or asbestos, where you can do the same.  Maybe not as easily or in real-time like radiation.  In fact, other than radiation, the only exposure that can be measured with a survey meter and tracked with a dosimeter in real-time is noise.  Because it can be sensed, it is easier to control because workers can tell where it is, from where it is coming, when and where the levels change, and it has an annoyance factor which triggers protective action ont their part without prompting.  (Well, not in every case.  It's mind-boggling the times when you have to remind people to use ear plugs when it should be obvious.)
Obvious is the word I was looking for.  It seems that the more obvious an exposure to risk is, the less likely people are to protect themselves.
If you separate health hazards -- radiation, lead, asbestos, noise, ... etc. -- from injury hazards, you will see a definite split in the behaviors people use to protect themselves.  Even when both acute and chronic exposures are coming from the same source, or from different sources simultaneously, you'll see people taking the precautions to protect against the chronic and ignore the acute.  Take for example a painter on a ladder with a spray nozzle.  You'll see him wear a respirator to protect his lungs from the paint, but jump the ladder to move it without getting off.  Or, the guy doing a bulk chemical delivery in a full-body suit, respirator and face-shield, but takes a shortcut to disconnect his hose from the tank while he is climbing on top of it with no fall arrest equipment.
In bodily injury hazards the risk exposure needle is always either zero or pegged high.  Likewise, the cumulative exposure resets to zero at the end of the task.  It seems that it is harder to manage the higher-risk behaviors than those which are relatively lower but cumulative.
So, I'm going to use your analogy to influence behaviors.  Let's see how well that works.  Thanks.

[illegalsmile]

Agreed.  The moment the Safety Department utters the words "not required by OSHA" in response to a concern, the "safety system" loses a lot of credibility.  Nobody in Radiation Protection is running around saying that it's alright to pick up 4.9 Rem, even though it is allowed by the NRC.

The only reason dumber than that is "We've always done it that way..."

[retired nuke]

The only reason dumber than that is "We've always done it that way..."

That's the phrase that raises my attention level - an immediate indicator that preplanning wasn't done, questioning attitude wasn't used, and peer checking failed. 

I do the hardhat / safety glasses / shoe police thing - but fall protection, permit required confined spaces and overhead work are where my eyes focus hard.... them issues will kill you...

[Already Gone]

Oh!  That one gives me heart burn.  Even back in the Navy, when I wasa assigned to my third boat, I came up against a lot of unorthodox practices that were a problem to me (and later were a problem for the NPEB too) that everyone pulled out that tired old line to justify.  To this day, every time I hear it I go apoplectic.  Really, if "that's the way we've always done it " were a legitimate reason for anything we would be:

-heating our homes by burning lumps of peat
-plowing fields with mules
-throwing our excrement into the gutter (out the window)
-healing our ills with leeches
-writing with sharpened feather quills
-reading by candle light
-washing with lye soap
-churning our own butter
-doing laundry in a stream with a rock
-carrying water into the house in a bucket
-dueling with flintlock pistols because somebody said something we didn't like (smiting is so much more civilized)
-dueling with swords because pistols were never invented
-bathing weekly -- or never
-dying of old age at 40

There are a lot of things to be said for progress.  But, "that's the way we've always done it" isn't one of them.

[Already Gone]

Someone just reminded me that there are about 48 different hazardous chemicals or chemical compounds for which dosimeters are available.  So, you can survey the concentrations with Draeger tubes, hang a passive dosimeter on the workers' shirts, quantify the risk level and exposure to that risk.  Pretty much follows the same argument.  You can measure and track exposures to health hazards, but there is no meter to quantify the exposure to risk of someone who is exposed to a bodily-injury hazard.

[Already Gone]

Yeah, I get it.  You can measure just about anything.  My point, which seemed obvious to me before, but not so much anymore, is that immediate risk to life and limb cannot be quantified or tracked with numbers, therefore are not as highly regarded as risk by the workers.  The paradox is that while a worker will take measures to prevent his dosimeter from alarming, he will expose himself to a greater, more immediate risk without consideration for the consequences.  If it can kill you dead right now, you'll do it.  If it has a statistical probability of 0.00000000001 of increasing your probability off illness, you'll make me show you reports, permits, surveys, sample results, and measurement data and STILL claim that I'm hiding some information that could affect your health.

I have literally had a crew of nearly 100 people stop work because they were in a condenser and someone told them that Hydrazine is used in the feedwater that eventually finds its way into the turbine as steam and then into that same condenser.  Every one of them left the condenser and sat in their trailer until I explained to them the minute details of Hydrazine use in nuclear power plants.  Try to get a single one of them to wear a harness or even check the confined space permit for the ACTUAL hazards that affected them directly.  Not gonna happen.

[let-it-ride]

My experience with 'safety' is that even though it is talked about almost every day and having monthly safety meetings when everyone has a free lunch, it is only followed when there is no other choice. Mostly this is with the DOE. (a totally corrupt organization, in my view)
I was on a job when the safety person called a stop work because of safety concerns involving high levels of ammonia. The supervisor told the safety person to leave the area. Then called another safety person to get the results that he wanted so work could continue. This is only one example, and I can give many more when the people working for the DOE do what they are told. Mainly because the workers are 'locals' and will do what they are told to keep their job.
That also goes to the so called "RCT supervisors and RPM's. I worked at a site when both of them said they will do what they know is wrong to keep their job.
Hey,when you are making more than $2000 a week to just show up, why should they care what happens? They are there for a pay check. After all, nothing bad will happen, things ALWAYS get swept under the rug. It has been like this for years.
I know, I know, this isn't what many want to hear, but this is what goes on from the East coast to the West coast.
The bottom line is to get the job done because everyone that lives in the area hates you and expects you to make them feel safe and happy, because they want the area to be made like it was when no one was there.
Am I wrong??

[mostlyharmless]

I agree to a degree. The percentage that will do the right thing regardless is small.We have a term where I work:"load the boat". It means to get as many people and levels of management involved with the decision so that responsability is spread. This is not the same as working safely or establishing a safety oriented work culture. But it does give you a little latitude to resist committing to some thing you know to be wrong or unsafe. A lot of what you describe is true. But here at SRS it is changing, however slowly. I was born here,my father worked here. I left and went on the road. When I first showed up here I was treated as an outsider. I took considerable pride in the fact that my work ethic and skill level was a bit different than the house techs. Any way, now I am thoroughly entrenched in the current culture and must do what I can to make it better, or rather reflect what I feel to be better. There is allways a bit of company line to be towed, but not at the expense of the health and well being of my coworkers and self or the adjacent community. After all , we are safety professionals and as such must behave with a minimum of regard to a work ethic. That being defined to some degree by the job title radiation protection,rad safety, health physics. Operations have to have the same regard to safety. I don't mean do as little as possible in regards to safety, but that in that our jobs are safety in nature a minimum consciousness of safety is inherent in performance of the job. To take a dose rate is at least self preservation.
We all so what we do as a job,for money. And so we obligate ourselves to the company to some degree. But there are a lot of resources available to protect us from pressure to compromise safety. First there is personal responsability. Failing that or if this leads to conflict with up line management,then see the code of federal regulations. First look at written, published company policy and procedure. These are based on CFR and stand on safety analysis and authorization basis's. Witch is another topic I wish someone would talk about. Probability, and safety analysis. My point is that you do not have to feel like your job is in jeopardy to defend the high ground. You just have to stand your ground and be able to explain your actions or inactions. Every one has stop work authority,theoretically. Use it. It wont make you popular but it may make the system better. Hopefully it wont come to that. Hopefully you can alter the course of work before the job starts.

[mostlyharmless]

Something new. Personnel decon by excision of flesh is still a viable option. One of the hazards of working with Pu.  If I sound flip, I am not. This occurred recently. It was done by a physician in a medical environment. This is a fact. And this is why safety is important,not some of the time, all of the time.

[mostlyharmless]

This is important. The other day a worker pierced his finger with a thin metal rod. The worker was wearing leather gloves,rubber gloves and cotton liners. Work was done in a glove box enclosure with very good ventilation. A count was done on the finger and a doctor cut out small pieces of flesh. More counts were done, the person placed on bioassey and released. The nuclide of concern was Pu239 and 238. Dont know about body burdon but there will likely be one.
Losing pieces of your body is not playing around.
How could this have been prevented?
There are a lot of factors that influence your behavior while you work. I have covered this type work previously and am very familiar.
Every one wants to get in ,get the job done , and get out. In the morning you want to get out for lunch. If you are being relieved you want to get things set up for the next shift. If its late at night ,after midnight ,you just want to make it through this purgatory like sleep deprived shift and go home. Or at least get a breakfast and a beer then go home. You are wearing two pair of everything plus an air supplied hood or a plastic suite. And leather gloves for sharps. It is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. You work at your on pace but you are working with several other people also working at their own pace, so the pace is modified. Plus some people are watching from a nearby air conditioned /heated office so their sense of reality is different from yours. Then your life outside work is a factor. All of these things influence what happens to you as you grab this wire and perform a task you have performed many times and suddenly you feel a poke in the finger and after a few seconds of denial you tell the rco and things proceed from there. You know everyone on site will know,the job will stop while an investigation occurs, and it will show up in the local papers a few days later.
Substitute,cavity decon,scaffold building, any of a number of jobs that we do every day and tell me all accidents are preventable.Tell me how.
I make observations,sometimes documented through BBS, sometimes not. I look at the human performance error precursors and recognise many factors that influence my behavior. But in the blink of an eye you reach for the wire and feel the stick, or you step over a pipe and find another under your foot. You hit your finger with a hammer.

[retired nuke]

Saw similar at RFETS using a sawzall in a glove box - just rubber gloves. We had to rad-transport the contaminated biohazard back to the site.

The biggest safety hazard is yourself - if your head isn't on what you are doing, you will get hurt....

Thanks for keeping us focused M/H

[mostlyharmless]

When I work Safety... (And I was a Rad Tech too...) My limited 3 outage experiences are these:

With Shaw/Stone & Webster, as a "Safety Engineer" covering ~1,000 Craft Workers: In the field 75%-80% of the time was the expectation, with the rest of the time used to respond to people's safety concerns, do paperwork on the injuries and on the tests (lead, chromium, asbestos, sound, etc, etc... ), listen to peoples safety concerns and follow up on them, prepare the safety chat for the next shift, and work on the outage safety report.  Many of the ~1,000 craft workers do not work in containment/dry-well.  I was specifically instructed to limit my exposure to radiation, and to limit my inspections in those area to the required limits, and nothing additional.  i.e. Inspect scaffolding if I need to, inspect postings if I need to, confined space, energized equipment, etc, etc.... but no leisure inspections.

Same job, the expectation was that in high risk jobs, we would give 100% coverage, by rotating in several safety people.

I have worked as a "Safety Observer" for Bartlett at DC Cook.  The expectation is also ~80% of your time in the field, and to limit your exposure to radiation.  I would most definitely spend the first week of the outage in containment as people alluded to above, then mostly "disappear" from containment - spending most of my time outside of higher radiation areas, focusing on Aux Building work, and step off pad areas.  The reason is this:  With the constantly changing conditions at the BEGINNING and END of an outage, the risk for a safety injury is at the highest.  It is important that when everything is getting moved in and set up, that everything is set up in a safe configuration.  Once everyone (workers/supervisors/engineers/management, etc) is happy the the plant is in its safest configuration allowable, there is little need for 100% coverage in the radiation area, often a high radiation area.  I don't need to watch an RP at a control point in containment 100% of the time.  Seriously, I don't.  If the location is configured safely, why would I need to be there?

In addition to the beginning and end (if I'm still there at the end), I also go top to bottom in Containment once every FEW days.  I have to admit, I get weird looks, people wondering why a "Safety Guy" is in containment... (Not that he shouldn't be... just that they are not accustomed to seeing it.)  I take a camera from ALARA, and snap pictures of house keeping.  As in the middle of an outage, in containment -- that is the highest risk - it causes slips, trips, and falls.  As well as falling objects.

I know that my reply had not one word about NPUA.  All of the personal attacks on Rad techs, and Safety people, and Troy should be split off to another thread.  If we have any moderators left, please do this for me.

Sorry I could not move this the normal way.
This is what I am trying to get for this topic. You folks have a loooooooooooooot ,loot? lot of experience and knowledge. Please put it here.MH

[Rennhack]

Fowl! I've been censored! Where are my posts!




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