Introduction/Administrative News The TRADE Industrial Hygiene/Occupational Safety Special Interest Group (IH/OS SIG) Steering Committee met on March 29, 2005 through a conference call meeting. IH/OS SIG Steering Committee Chair Ralph Hinterman, Argonne National Laboratory-East (ANL-E), facilitated the meeting in which the following Steering Committee members and guests participated:
Claudia Beach, EH-53, Office of Occupational Health
Tom Cornell, Fluor Hanford Inc.
Bill Frede, Honeywell FM&T
Phil Grogin, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
Ralph Hinterman, ANL-E, IH/OS SIG Steering Committee Chair
Lowell Howard, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Michael Hurshman, S.M. Stoller
Bob Kapolka, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), IH/OS SIG Steering Committee Advisory Chair
Dr. Daniel Marsick, DOE, EH-52, Office Of Worker Protection Policy and Programs
Deborah McFalls, ORISE, IH/OS SIG Coordinator
Bruce Murdoch , ANL-E
John Peters, Brookhaven National Laboratory
The following Steering Committee member notified the IH/OS SIG Chair/Coordinator that he could not participate in the meeting:
Rob Nicholas, LANL
10 CFR 851 Update Michael Hurshman and Bob Kapolka reported on information about the 10 CFR 851 draft document received through participation in the DOE video conference on March 23. The conference was more a question and answer session than an overview of the document. They were surprised about the large number of remaining unresolved issues for 851. Issues/concerns that came up during the conference included:
No threshold for reporting has been determined. The contractors do not have a clear understanding of the reporting requirements. This is a concern especially as it relates to the civil penalties being put in-place under this regulation.
The Appendix includes a list of applicable references to be incorporated into the sites’ S&H programs. Contractors are questioning the correctness of the list. Some of the references fly in the face of applying Work Smart standards which many sites have worked toward for a long time. These sites have drilled down to standards that directly apply to their work and the list of mandatory documents seems to contradict what they have been doing with the Work Smart standards process since the late 1990s.
Concern about requirement to have all medical records in electronic format by 2007. The deadline for that requirement will be challenging.
The DOE Enforcement officials reported that any guides or reference documents noted in a site’s S&H program would be enforceable.
The sites’ S&H programs will have to be approved by DOE. There were concerns about DOE having enough staff to complete the sites’ S&H Program approval process within the required 90-day timeframe. All the sites would be submitting their programs at the same time to HQ.
Potential external regulations of some DOE sites are not addressed in the regulation.
There is little connection between 851 and the Integrated Safety Management (ISM) process. Sites are concerned that they will have to have two separate programs to address both 851 and ISM.
VPP sites are not addressed in the regulation. Some noted that words should be incorporated into the scope of 851 to partially or fully exempt VPP sites from the regulation since these sites have already established they have an effective S&H program by another means. If this is not addressed in 851, some of the incentives are lost for sites to become VPP sites.
The regulation’s comment period is open through the end of April.
Overview of the DOE Special Operations Report: Laser Safety Bruce Murdoch provided information about the new document, DOE Special Operations Report: Laser Safety that he had provided comments on to DOE during the development process. Bruce is a laser safety officer (LSO) at ANL-E. He started his presentation with a reminder about the LANL laser accident and the information that was in the related follow-up report. The LANL report included some issues that are somewhat repetitive across the DOE complex:
Poor quality of the supervision of students working in laboratories
Poor training in laser hazards
Poor oversight (administrative)/accountability of the laser program
The Office of Science sponsored a video conference last fall to address laser safety operations within the DOE complex. Afterwards, DOE EH organized a laser safety committee to identify common causes that occurred with 6 laser accidents within the DOE complex. The Committee was asked to reduce the causes to root causes and make recommendations that could be universal within the DOE complex. The result of this task was the DOE Special Operations Report: Laser Safety document that came from the DOE EH-3 Office of Corporate Performance Assessment. Bruce was tasked to draft a plan for ANL-E to respond to the new document. Bruce noted that the report mandates that the Office of Science sites submit action plans in response to the bulleted items in the report within 90 days. ANL-E is responding to the report by:
Making the local laser control supervisor responsible for the hands-on (on-the-job) training
Creating a hands-on training excise program
Rewriting the supervisory policies to clarify who is in charge
Stressing to employees that they must compile with ESH policies or punitive actions will result
Encouraging students to notify appropriate staff members about issues with mentor/ student relationships. ANL-E has an educational program that assigns a mentor to each student and the mentor becomes the student’s laboratory supervisor.
Defining a period for inspections of the laboratories
Changing to a permit system with an expiration date identified
Ensuring the LSO is qualified and trained
Ensuring the LSO is part of any laser accident investigation
Ensuring that all supervisors of laser users take laser safety training
The Steering Committee hopes to have a DOE official from the DOE Office of Corporate Performance Assessment to participate in a future conference call to share additional information about the report. The report can be accessed at: http://www.eh.doe.gov/paa/Laser_Safety_Report.pdf.
Claudia Beach encouraged Dan Marsick to develop a DOE Web site for laser users. Claudia offered to house the Web site temporarily at: http://quickplace.lnc.doe.gov/occhealthforum until EH could set up one that just focused on laser safety. Claudia suggested Dan look at the OCCH Web site also for ideas on how to set up the laser safety Web site.
Introducing DOE Eye H&S Exhibit Online (Posters) Claudia Beach briefed the committee on DOE eye safety posters that are now available through the Web at: http://www.eh.doe.gov/health/hservices/occmed/healthpromotion.html. She noted that last fall, DOE Assistance Secretary for Environmental, Safety and Health John Shaw requested a Health and Safety Fitness and Wellness Calendar of Events ( http://www.eh.doe.gov/health/hservices/calendar/2005DOE_HandScalendar_ver12_4-8-05.pdf) which includes numerous related activities. One of the events was an exhibit of eye H&S posters which were made available on-line. The posters were created to just focus on eye safety in a wide range of activities including:
Children Eye Safety
Don’t Lose Sight of Safety
Eye H&S Banner
Eye Banks
Eye Disease Research
Eye Protection
Home Eye Safety
Recognize Symptoms
Sports Eye Safety
Work Eye Safety
The event held for staff at HQ was very successful which has resulted in Claudia planning more poster exhibits in the future instead of seminars. The committee asked Claudia to develop posters related to heat stress/stroke protection. Claudia noted it would be important to include actual images of workers at the DOE sites in the upcoming posters. Committee Chair Ralph Hinterman encouraged Committee members to submit additional suggestions for development of posters as well as images for inclusion to Claudia.
Briefing on the Joint EFCOG/DOE Chemical Management 2005 Workshop Dan Marsick briefed the Committee on news from the March Joint EFCOG/DOE Chemical Management 2005 Workshop. Conference participant discussions included plant security, chemical reactivity, and nanotechnology. Among the presenters at the worker were Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and the Chemical Safety Board representatives. At the workshop, new topics were selected to review closer. One of the topics is reactive chemicals that formal Steering Committee Member, Helena Whyte will chair a committee to review. The results of their research and discussion will be published in journals as well as on the DOE Chemical Management Program Web site at: http://www.eh.doe.gov/chem_safety/. Another topic that will be reviewed is life cycle management of chemicals. A report is also expected of that review/discussion. Plans are underway now for the 2006 workshop.
General Discussion Ralph Hinterman reminder Committee members of the upcoming AIHce 2005 Conference scheduled for May 21-26, 2005 in Anaheim , California . Dan Marsick reported that DOE Official David Pergram is the lead on the DOE meeting that will be held at the conference. Details about the conference can be viewed at: http://www.aiha.org/aihce05/aihce.htm.
Future Steering Committee Meeting The next Steering Committee Conference Call Meeting is scheduled for April 28, 2005 , 1:15 – 2:45 EST , conference call number is 301/903-6496.
For additional information, please contact: Deborah McFalls, IH/OS SIG Coordinator
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
P. O. Box 117, MS 10
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-0117
