The Key Bridge Collapse: Are There Lessons for Us Now?
“Catastrophic bridge accidents are rare, but the number and severity of those due to ship collisions far exceed those due to winds, waves, and earthquakes combined.” — [...]
Bump Caps: When Are They Appropriate?
“Do nothing that is of no use.” — Miyamoto Musashi I have been in several facilities recently that used bump caps as head protection. I make it [...]
“OSHA Says”: Eye Protection
“What we see depends mainly on what we are looking for.” — John Lubbock Every chemical plant I have ever been in has these minimum requirements for [...]
When A Chemical Truck Rolls Over: Gawkers
“It’s what you do next that counts.” — Lisa Mackay One of my favorite movies is The Great Waldo Pepper starring Robert Redford as a barnstorming pilot [...]
“OSHA Says”: Hard Hat Colors
“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.” — George Carlin I was recently astonished to hear someone talking [...]
Jargon: Keeping it Simple
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” — often misattributed to Albert Einstein I don’t spend much time in court rooms. I’m [...]
Too Extreme for Work? Cold Snaps and Heat Waves
“Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” — Charles Dudley Warner A few weeks ago, we were treated to the sight of icicles [...]
Resin-Based Concrete: The Hazards of Handling New Materials
“When an engineer has built a bridge, the fact that a cat can pass over the bridge is no proof that the bridge is good. A train [...]
Deadly Jobs Revisited
“Automation is driving the decline of banal and repetitive tasks.” — Amber Rudd Five years ago, I had the opportunity to give a TED talk called “Deadly [...]
The New BLS Fatality Report: Safety in a Post-Pandemic World
“The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.” — Chinua Achebe Back in December 2021, the BLS report showed that [...]
Heavy Metal: What Is It?
“Heavy metal? Like Rock of Ages?” — Isis Hainsworth in Metal Lords It’s hard to pin down a definition of heavy metal, whether you are talking about [...]
Choosing The Perfect Footwear for Work
“…I can feel it in my toes. Christmas is all around me. And so the feeling grows.” — Bill Nighy in Love Actually Although I have on [...]
Whatever Your Reason: Incentives for Compliance
“Rather than a prosecutor saying, ‘you have nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong,’ a more accurate portrayal would be ‘if I decide you have [...]
Safe Limits for Oxygen Exposure: Why 19.5% to 23.5%?
“Love is like oxygen. You get too much, you get too high; not enough and you’re gonna die.” — Andy Scott, of Sweet OSHA standards define safe [...]
Pyrophoria: Spontaneous Combustion
“Do I mind if you smoke? I don’t mind if you burst into flames. Just don’t light that cigarette.” — Anonymous, derived from Sarah Bernhardt’s comment to [...]
Carbon Dioxide: A Simple Asphyxiant?
“In the last two decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of people have died of carbon dioxide asphyxiation near volcanoes in Cameroon and in Indonesia.” — Allison [...]
All Gases Are Hazardous
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash, it’s a gas.” — Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, of The Rolling Stones Ever notice how the popular media never refer to chemicals. No, [...]
Crossing Streams: Safety During Simultaneous Operations
“Don’t cross the streams.” -Egon from Ghostbusters It doesn’t take much for two tasks to interfere with one another out in general industry. Work environments can be [...]
Ain’t Misbehavin’: Frozen Pipes When It’s Warm
“Hell freezing over? I don’t know. But the devil’s definitely wearing a sweater.” — J.R.Moehringer Nerd humor requires pointing out that Hell freezing over does NOT equate to [...]
Cameras: Like A Watched Pot
“Notice. All Activities Monitored By Video Camera.” — Various Department Store Surveillance Signs The adage that a watched pot never boils is false. The boil will occur, [...]
Transportation Safety: Hauling Hazardous Chemicals
“This is the beginning, and the dawn of a new era of transportation.” — Shervin Pishevar On Friday evening, September 29, 2023, at about 8:40 pm, the [...]
Confined Spaces: What Are They?
“Space is something you have to define. Otherwise, it is like anxiety, which is too vague. A fear is something specific. I like claustrophobic spaces, because at [...]
Earthquakes: How Will You Respond?
“Earthquakes don’t kill people. Buildings kill people.” — Wendy Bohon, geologist How many times have you been in a hazard review discussing the potential for a particularly [...]
Are We in Danger? Reauthorizing CFATS
“Anything can go away. There’s no such thing as security. You can do things that give you the illusion of security, but there’s really no such thing.” [...]
…And Their Representatives
“Representation not only reflects, but actually changes reality.” — Angela Chen OSHA has several regulations that allow or require employee participation in activities regarding workplace safety. For [...]
Too Many Players on the Field: PHA Teams
“Meetings should have as few people as possible, but all the right people.” — Charles W. Scharf Ever been in a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) meeting where [...]
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble: Hatch Additions
“Ideas nearly always seem brilliant when they’re hatched, so we never act on a new idea for at least twenty-four hours.” — Steven D. Levitt Batch processes [...]
A Flurry of Activity: Recent CSB Final Reports
“Once you start something, finish it. Don’t accumulate a backlog of unfinished projects.” — Ed Bliss If you are on the Chemical Safety Board’s distribution list, you [...]
Time at Risk
“Time flies over us but leaves its shadow behind.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne Layers of protection analysis (LOPA) considers enabling conditions as part of the analysis. Enabling conditions [...]
Recordable vs. Reportable: OSHA’s Changing Requirements
“OSHA has determined that…the Form 300A data are sufficient for enforcement targeting and compliance assistance at this time.” — OSHA in 84 FR 392, 25-Jan-2019 Many have [...]
Duct Tape and Baling Wire: Safely Using Temporary Fixes
“Sometimes using duct tape and baling wire is a terrible and/or dangerous choice.” — Kay Rhodes On Sunday, June 11, 2023, a burning truckload of gasoline under [...]
Lab Safety: A Tax on Scientific Productivity?
“Externalized costs are negative impacts associated with economic transactions which concern people outside of those transactions, meaning that neither the buyer nor the seller bears the brunt [...]
Losing It: Drain Valves and Vent Valves
“Among our articles of lazy hardware, I recommend the faucet that stops dripping when no one is listening to it.” — Marcel Duchamp Piping systems need drain [...]
Opioid Crisis in the Process Industries: Narcan as First Aid
“Fentanyl is everywhere. From large metropolitan areas to rural America, no community is safe from this poison.” — Anne Milgram I believe that we cannot reduce the [...]
Fireproof? Why Concrete Structures Fail In a Fire
“They swore by concrete. They built for eternity.” — Günter Grass A tank truck hauling gasoline caught fire under an I-95 overpass outside of Philadelphia on Sunday, [...]
Piping Leaks: The Most Common Process Hazard
“Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.” — Benjamin Franklin The most common hazard we encounter during a HazOp is a leaking [...]
But They Will Still Burn: Class IIIB Liquids
“Restaurant kitchens have grease fires all the time. A little oil on a burner, and you clear out a restaurant without raising too much suspicion or causing [...]
Cracking the Code: AI’s Breakthrough in Process Safety
“Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.” —Ginni [...]
Process Safety in Flight: Attack of the Drones
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation [...]
A Second Wind
“Time is the fire in which we burn.”- Delmore Schwartz A resin and rosin manufacturer in Brunswick, Georgia reignited in the afternoon on April 15th after catching [...]
Human Response: An Effective Safeguard?
“Shallow men believe in luck; wise and strong men in the cause and effect." – Ralph Waldo Emerson In process safety, one important aspect of assessing risk [...]
Cooking with Love: Multitasking in the Control Room
“There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in [...]
Deadly Explosion…At a Chocolate Factory?
“The fact is the media never gets off the interstate unless there’s a major explosion.” — Jim Harrison On Friday, March 24, 2023, shortly before 5 pm [...]
Close to the Edge: Banking, Railroads, and…the Chemical Industry?
“Banking should be boring.” — Senator Elizabeth Warren We tend to celebrate those adventurers who take big risks for the chance at big rewards, at least when [...]
Second Look: Keeping P&IDs Up to Date
“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.“ -Martin Luther King, Jr. Many events and activities in life require planning, [...]
Fire: What’s In a Name
“The name is the thing, and the true name is the true thing. To speak the name is to control the thing.” — Ursala K. Le Guin, [...]
Derailments: How a Process Safety Perspective Can Prevent Them
“Luck is not an acceptable substitute for early detection.” — Valerie Harper Three weeks after the Norfolk Southern (NS) derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, the well-meaning editorial [...]
Ventilation: What is Adequate?
“There is nothing that this age, from whatever standpoint we survey it, needs more, physically, intellectually, and morally, than thorough ventilation.” — John Ruskin I worked on [...]
What Can We Do? The Derailment in East Palestine, Ohio
“People just don’t sue doctors they really like.” — Alice Burkin, plaintiff’s attorney Nice doctors get sued less. On the other hand, “evil corporations” are far more [...]
OSHA’s New Dust NEP: What is the Impact on DHAs?
“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” — T.S. Elliot OSHA does not have a combustible dust regulation. Instead, it relies on a hodge-podge [...]
Preventing Profit Over Safety: OSHA’s New Reliance on Penalties
“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 [...]
Just Right: Hazardous (Classified) Locations
“My life experience confirms that the U.S. government frequently overclassifies data.” — Michael Hayden When it comes hazardous (classified) locations—electrical classification—even seemingly sophisticated technical facilities often get it [...]
Exhaust Ducts: When Safeguards Have Their Own Hazards
“The guard shall be such that it does not offer an accident hazard in itself.” — 29 CFR 1910.212(a)(2) Machine guarding It’s hard to imagine any safeguard [...]
Using CSB Incident Reporting to Spot Trends: Will We Do It?
“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 [...]
Avoiding the Streetlight Effect: How Does the CPI Really Get Safer?
“The battle of getting better is never ending.” — Antonio Brown There’s an old joke about someone looking for their keys under a streetlight. A passerby offered [...]
The Latest Work Fatality Data: Are We Getting Better?
“It’s often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Very, very, very often said.” – [...]
Process Safety: Tornadoes in December
“The potential changes to particular provisions of the current PSM standard that OSHA is considering include: 8. Clarifying paragraph (e) to require consideration of natural disasters and [...]
A Safer World: More than a Holiday Wish?
“There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.” — Erma Bombeck This time of year is full of holiday [...]
PSM Documents: How Long Do I Have to Keep This Stuff?
“The entire health care system is now being organized around machines instead of human beings. Not prioritized to reduce human suffering, but rather to optimize a computerized [...]
Not a Dust Explosion: Fatalities at a Polish Granary
“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.” — George Orwell Yesterday afternoon, I was asked [...]
It’s Natural, But Is It Safe?
“…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 [...]
The Good Old Days: Never Again
“Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.” — Doug Larson It’s hard to imagine the New York skyline without the [...]
Is There a Season of Death? Work-Related Fatalities
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to [...]
Top 10 OSHA Violations: The Process Industries
“The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists.” — H. Allen Smith My first experience with lists was as a child, when [...]
Hearing Protection: Will Earbuds or Headphones Work?
“Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired.” — Pete Townshend “Why not?” The young operator had just asked if they could wear earbuds [...]
HazWOpER: What is an Emergency?
“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 [...]
Time for Change: Revising the Elements of PSM
“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” — Charles Kettering I just got notice from OSHA that I am registered [...]
Spreading OSHA’s Wings: Expanding the Scope of PSM
“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the [...]
Just Two Breaths
“I love to breath. Oxygen is sexy.” — Kris Carr How long can you hold your breath? One minute? Two minutes? Pearl divers have been known to [...]
The Shipping News
“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 [...]
I Can’t Breathe: Asphyxia in the Process Industries
“Suffocation is a cruel way to go.” — Arlaina Tibensky I usually think of process safety hazards as being related to fire, explosions, or toxic releases. There [...]
Just Water? Process Hazards of H2O
“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 [...]
Accidental Release Reporting: Data from the CSB
“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. [...]
Not Just PPE—The Right PPE!
“The hardest choices in life aren’t between what’s right and what’s wrong but between what’s right and what’s best.” — Jamie Ford Most of the chemical plants [...]
Recent Explosions in St. Louis: Lessons for Process Safety
“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 [...]
Unavailability During Proof Tests: What Do You Do?
“…there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it, it’ll [...]
Consider: A Weasel Word?
“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I [...]
The Chemical Process Industries: Getting Safer?
“My first customer was a lunatic. My second had a death wish.” — Karl Benz We want to get safer. We invest enormous resources in making the [...]
Are Boilers PSM-Covered? Maybe, Maybe Not
“It’s very hard for all of us, when we’ve committed ourselves to a particular interpretation, to change our minds.” — Donald Johanson We were recently asked if [...]
PVEs, BLEVEs, VCEs, and Fireballs: How Do They Differ?
“Maybe tone it down with the explosions.” — Michael Bay Most of what we know about explosions is wrong. Most of what we “know” about explosions is [...]
Going to a Safe State: De-energize to Trip
“You may hate gravity, but gravity doesn’t care.” — Clayton Christensen In May 1946, a scientist at Los Alamos was demonstrating the criticality of plutonium. The demonstration [...]
Fail Safe: A Dangerous Misconception
“They’ve thought of everything. Everything, that is, but their own failure.” — K. Austin Collins I recently watched the 1964 movie, Fail Safe, directed by Sidney Lumet. [...]
Process Design and Hazard Review: They Are Not the Same
“A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” — Alec Issigonis Good process design results in a process that is more likely to work. Great process [...]
Probability of Failure: Power Transformer Reliability
“At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall.” — Optimus Prime, Transformers: The Movie I have never been to a process plant that [...]
Power Failures: Back-Up Generator Reliability
“With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound, he pulls the spitting high tension wires down.” — Buck Dharma, Blue Öyster Cult The preferred design of a [...]
Safety in a Time of War
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those [...]
Eternal Vigilance: Proof Tests are Essential to Safety
“But, after all, no safeguards are adequate, unless the will to give effect to them fully is present.” — Jawaharial Nehru I had a truly embarrassing experience [...]
Occupancy: Getting It Right
“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.” — [...]
Process Safety: Making Promises We Can’t Keep?
“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 [...]
Process Risk: Learning from Experience
“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” — John Dewey There are too many celebrities and philosophers to count who have talked about [...]
KISS: Keep It Simple = Safety
“Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.” — Edsger Dijkstra For most of my life, I have struggled to keep down to a healthy weight. It didn’t help when [...]
Cooking with Love: Multitasking in the Control Room
“There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in [...]
The Supreme Court and Process Safety
“That is not to say OSHA lacks authority to regulate occupation-specific risks related to COVID–19.” — Brett Kavanaugh It’s not often that the courts weigh in on [...]
It’s Magic: Documentation and Certification in PSM
“You don’t need to say any special incantation or sacrifice a stray cat or something first.” — Kevin Hearne A common complaint about complying with OSHA’s Process [...]
Process Safety: Addressing Risk or Dread?
“The risks that scare people and the risks that kill people are very different.” — Peter Sandman I often wonder if work in process safety is a [...]
Work-Related Fatalities in the Year of Covid
“Maybe this virus has a silver lining.” — Katherine Plumhoff The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its workplace safety statistics for the previous year each December. The [...]
Tis the Season for Static
“Take off your sweater in the darkness and static flares as a tiny lightning storm.” — John Geddes The dry air of winter makes it much more [...]
Written in Blood: Safety Lessons from Disasters
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” — Lyndon B. Johnson Many of the lessons we learn in life are [...]
Risk Reduction: Any Credit for Mechanical Integrity?
“People give us credit only for what we ourselves believe.” — Karl Gutzkow Several years ago, in a paper and presentation to the Global Congress on Process [...]
Piling On: One More Safeguard?
“Some safety professionals, in the name of ‘zero-injuries’, will heap regulation after regulation on a job until the organization rebels and simply refuses to comply.” — Phil [...]
E-Stops: The “Get Fired Button”
“Panic is a natural response to danger, but it’s one that severely compounds the risk.” — David Ignatius At 2:30 am, on Saturday, October 2, 2021, a split [...]
Speed Of Thought
The degree of slowness is directionally proportional to the intensity of memory. The degree of speed is directionally proportional to the intensity of forgetting.” ― Milan Kundera, Slowness Every [...]
Batch Processes: Consider a Procedural HazOp
“We know we need civilization and laws and procedures, but isn’t it frustrating? Wouldn’t it be great if we could just do what we needed to do?” [...]
Safety Training: Why Do We Hate It?
“I wish we had more safety training.” — No one. Ever. Have you ever had a coworker respond, “You are so lucky,” when you told them that [...]
Process Safety and Ethics
“Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.” — Bill Moyers One definition of ethics is [...]
Process Safety and Mental Health
“Because most suicides do not happen at work, many employers do not consider depression or suicide an industry problem or occupational hazard.” — Stu Kemppairnen When we [...]
Death in La Porte: Glacial Acetic Acid is Not Vinegar
“I attach a Material Safety Data Sheet for the safe handling of table salt as required by a governmental agency. One could wax sarcastically about this travesty [...]
Steam or Hot Oil: Which Is Safer?
“I have always fancied that the end of the world will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and [...]
Also?
“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…and I also know that I’m not blonde.” — Dolly Parton See someone [...]
SIS and the Bathtub Curve
“When I was young, I would sit in the bath and ideas would come to me. But I’m not young anymore, so now I just sit in [...]
How Much Credit for Alarms?
“Morning comes whether you set the alarm or not.” — Ursula K. Le Guin Late one evening a few months after we moved into our offices on [...]
Storage Tanks: Labeling Requirements
“Don’t rely too much on labels, for too often they are fables.” — Charles Spurgeon Trick question: “What does PSM require for storage tank labeling?” Trick answer: [...]
Slightly Flammable? Low GWP Refrigerants and PSM
“You can’t get a little bit pregnant, son.” — Hal Holbrook as Lou Mannheim in Wall Street, (1987) A whole new group of processes are about to [...]
Out of Harm’s Way: Using Drones to Fight Chemical Plant Fires
“Running toward danger is foolhardy. But so is closing your eyes to it. Many perils become less dangerous once you understand their potential hazards.” — Brandon Mull [...]
DHAs: An OSHA Requirement?
“Speed limit 55. It’s not just a good idea. It’s the law.” — Advertising Council and U.S. Department of Transportation (1977) Ever since the National Fire Protection [...]
The Next Thing You Know: PSM-Covered Warehousing
“On the first day of school, you got to be real careful where you sit. You walk into the classroom and just plunk your stuff down on [...]
Just Paint? Fire and Explosion in Ohio
“Never underestimate the power of a fresh coat of white paint.” — Jeremiah Brent Shortly after midnight on Thursday, April 8, there was a fire and explosion [...]
Psychological First Aid: Assistance in the Aftermath of Disaster
“Preparation through education is less costly than learning through tragedy.”— Max Mayfield Have you ever been at the scene of a disaster? For most, the answer is [...]
Toeing the Line on Equipment Spacing
“Perfection of planned layout is only achieved by institutions on the point of collapse.” -C. Northcote Parkinson Must be an Easy Way Out Every time you [...]
The Dose Makes the Poison
“All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.” — Paracelsus Have you ever noticed [...]
Don’t Want No Static
“Electricity can be dangerous. My nephew tried to stick a penny into a plug. Whoever said a penny doesn’t go far didn’t see him shoot across that [...]
Combustible Dust Tests: Now What?
“We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.” — George Berkeley You don’t need to be convinced that combustible dusts are hazardous. You’ve [...]
Thinking Outside the Chatterbox
“Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession.”-Kingman Brewster Jargon. A word that most of us have heard before. Many enjoy using certain phrases that amount to [...]
Process Safety Beyond the Fence Line
“I’m an actor… I do a job and I go home. Why are you interested in me? You don’t ask a truck driver about his job.” — [...]
Operator Errors: Are They Really Design Errors?
“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” — Alexander Pope I was in a PHA once where the lone operator on the PHA team finally grew weary [...]
Simple Asphyxiation: The Tragedy in Gainesville
“It is these properties that make materials so useful that also pose hazards to health and property.” — Peter Lodal Liquid nitrogen has some wonderful properties. It [...]
Politicizing Workplace Safety
“Politicized public health policy strays too far from sober assessment of scientific facts and runs the risk of constituting naked political advocacy.” — Daniel Goldberg In the [...]
Tribal Knowledge: Documentation Is Key
“It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.”- Immanuel Kant In the hustle and bustle of our modern world, we take shortcuts to [...]
PSSRs: Commissioning on Steroids?
“Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.” — Michael Dell I’ve always believed that a poor plant design, brilliantly operated and maintained, is far safer than [...]
Pool Fires
“Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.” [...]
Squeezing the Balloon
“Squeezing a balloon in one place makes it expand in another.” — Bernd Debusmann Finally. 2020, the worst year in living memory for most of us, is [...]
BLS Fatality Statistics for 2019: Like a Shark
“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our [...]
“Expanded” PSM Coverage: What Has Changed?
“I don’t believe in life after death. But I do believe in some grinding destiny that watches over us on earth. If I didn’t, the safety valve [...]
Accident Prone?
“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” — Walter Mosley Have you ever known someone who seemed to have more than their [...]
Dear Austin: Is It Going to Get Better?
“The future depends on what you do today.” — Mahatma Gandhi “How intensive is the view on safety in the engineering, manufacturing, and industrial world?” As this [...]
Covid Fatigue? Give it a Rest
“As the pandemic drags on, following COVID-19 prevention guidelines can feel like more and more of a challenge.” — Jay Maddock, Professor of Public Health Tired of [...]
Why People Are Unsafe: What Can You Do About It?
“Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.” — Nelson Mandela Why are people unsafe? Why do they engage in unsafe behaviors, [...]
How Likely? Your Guess is As Good As…
“For what it's worth, a good streak doesn't jinx you, and a bad one, unfortunately, does not mean better luck is in store.” — Leonard Mlodinow When [...]
Training: How Refreshing
“It is so refreshing to have somebody approach education rationally.” — Adam Cooper There probably isn’t anything as refreshing as a shower. Especially after hot, dirty work. [...]
Frozen Pipes? Cold is Not the Cause
“It’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end.” — Douglas Adams It is October and cold weather is bearing down on [...]
Your Plant on Nextdoor
“Where our memories fade, the Internet never forgets. At the drop of a hat, friends, family members, acquaintances, and even strangers can call up these records, and [...]
PHAs and LOPAs: What Would You Recommend?
“I don’t have a particular recommendation other than that we base decisions on as much hard data as possible.” — Dorothy E. Denning The best waiters are [...]
We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Control Room Egress
“We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do.” — Cynthia Weil/Barry Mann How many exits do we need from our [...]
Millennial Engineers: Challenging Stereotypes and Realizing Value
“We are here to build the house.” — Cheryl Strayed Millennials have garnered a bad reputation. So much so that the word “millennial”, itself, is often intended [...]
Black Sky: A Bad Week for Polyethylene
“It’s everything you do and nothing that you did.” — Steve Cash Poly-America is having a bad week. Last Wednesday, August 19, at around 1 am, a [...]
Fahrenheit 451: Autoignition Temperatures
“‘Stuff your eyes with wonder,’ he said, ‘live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic that any dream made or [...]
Insanity: Another Ammonium Nitrate Explosion
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — First said by an anonymous member of Al-Anon in Knoxville, Tennessee I [...]
Previous Incidents: Learning from Mistakes
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” — Henry Ford I know a young woman whose relationships are in a constant state [...]
Choosing Safety: Is That How We Roll?
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” — Maya Angelou Many St. Louis drivers view stop signs [...]
Workplace Safety: As Good As It Gets?
“What if this is as good as it gets?” — Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets, directed by James L. Brooks The [...]
In the Midst of a Pandemic: Fourth of July Safety
“Fourth of July is not cancelled this year…it will just look a little different.” — Megan Willgoos I love fireworks displays. Especially those with big finales. As [...]
Breaking the Law: Conservation of Recklessness
“Be afraid. Be very afraid.” — Geena Davis as Veronica Quaife in The Fly, directed by David Cronenburg Try as we might, we safety professionals cannot make [...]
Why We Wear Masks
“The amount of misinformation on the Internet – especially on Facebook and especially during times of crisis – is staggering.” — Benjamin Franklin We’ve returned to work [...]
PPE: It’s Not Personal
“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” — John B. Finch I have mixed feelings about motorcycle helmets and mandatory helmet [...]
Silence is Not Golden: Intervening and Reporting Unsafe Behavior
“The power of one man or one woman doing the right thing for the right reason, at the right time, is the greatest influence in our society.” [...]
When Opportunity Knocks: Hand Sanitizer and Process Safety
“Be adventurists in the sense of being bold and daring. Be opportunists and seize this opportunity, this moment in history, to go out and save our country. [...]
Administrative Controls: The Invisible Safeguards
“Prepare and prevent, don’t repair and repent.” – Author Unknown Most safeguards can be easily observed. They might be the mechanical guards that prevent one’s fingers getting [...]
Whose Fault? What to Do with Crazy
“Minimizing your exposure to pathology goes a long, long way.” — Dr. Susan Biali Haas When a sensor faults, it doesn’t stop providing information. It’s just unreliable [...]
Eight Ideas for Sharing Process Safety with Your Kids
“I was looking for a way to do meaningful work and seeing how much satisfaction my father derived from his job made me see it was a [...]
Human Response: An Effective Safeguard?
“Shallow men believe in luck; wise and strong men in the cause and effect." – Ralph Waldo Emerson In process safety, one important aspect of assessing risk [...]
Managing Process Safety: Lessons from the Pandemic
“When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” — Samuel Johnson COVID-19, with its 14-day – fortnight – [...]
The Safety Swamp: COVID-19 and Other Alligators
“When one is up to his ass in alligators, it is easy to forget that his original objective was to drain the swamp.” — William Moore Thanks [...]
Behavioral Based Safety Mistakes: Why Your Program is Failing
“It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.” — W. Edwards Deming When I began working [...]
What If There Was No PSM Standard?
“What’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the [...]
What We Worry About: It’s Not the Virus
“The term ‘triage’ normally means deciding who gets attention first.” — Bill Dedman Most people have no reason to worry about getting fatally ill from COVID-19. Despite [...]
Process Safety: How Far We’ve Come
“Life is a journey and not a destination.” — Lynn H. Hough When Richard Nixon signed OSHA into law in 1970, the United States was looking at [...]
Emergencies: Who Are Essential Personnel?
“Is there anyone here on staff who you think is non-essential? If you had to give up one name, who would it be?” — Conan O’Brien During [...]
Here We Go Again: Defunding the CSB
“Here we go again. Fighting for resources. What the hell am I doing here?” — Brad Pitt as Roy McBride in Ad Astra I just received an [...]
Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Process Safety
“You’re a hero one day, you’re a villain another day.” — Vincent Tan Every good story is a story of conflict. It has a villain. It has [...]
What We Know: Another Explosion in Houston
“All I know is what I read in the papers.” — Will Rogers When there is a catastrophic release of highly hazardous chemicals, I want to know [...]
Employee Retention as a Safety Solution: How to Keep Good Employees
“A bad system will beat a good person every time.” -W.E. Deming According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 40 million American workers quit their jobs [...]
3 Criteria for Picking LOPA Scenarios
“The easiest way to solve a problem is to pick an easy one.” — Franklin P. Jones We love having choices. We hate making choices. What if [...]
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: HazOp Nodes
“Come on, baby, let’s start anew, ‘cause breaking up is hard to do.” — Neil Sedaka Before a HazOp team ever assembles, the facilitator has some important [...]
Things We Worry About: Celebratory Gunfire
“[It’s the] wild west in Dutchtown to ring in the new year. :(” — Jennie Foster on Nextdoor In my neighborhood, you don’t need a clock or [...]
2018 BLS Fatality Report: Has Anything Changed?
“The more things change, the more they remain the same.” — Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr When I was a young engineer living in a small town in central [...]
Everyone Gets a Prize: Employee Participation
“Nor should participation trophies be offered for simply showing up.” — Kevin Dickenson OSHA is fond of pointing out that the Process Safety Management Standard, 29 CFR-1910.119 [...]
Inconceivable: Unrecognized Hazards
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” - Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya, in The Princess Bride I [...]
Improving Human Performance Reliability
“We must accept human error as inevitable - and design around that fact.” — Donald Berwick The idea of human error and its contribution to industrial incidents [...]
A Fatal Cleaning Incident: Familiarity Breeds …
“While devastated at this unimaginable loss, we are so very proud that Ryan died while trying to protect his fellow employees and restaurant patrons.” — family of [...]
Out of the Blocks: Credit for Human Response
“Fear is often our immediate response to uncertainty.” — Gabrielle Bernstein In 2001, when the CCPS book, Layer of Protection Analysis: Simplified Process Risk Assessment, “the purple [...]
Dia de los Muertos: Remembering the Dead
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana Our offices on Cherokee Street exist in the midst of a vibrant Hispanic [...]
Size Matters: Sampling for PSM Compliance Audits
“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.” — Oscar G. Foellinger, 1927 As an engineering student, I once used empirical data to solve a design [...]
We’re Not Wizards
“But how they can be charged with negligence because they were not wizards, appellant’s brief does not make clear.” — Osmond K. Fraenkel, successfully arguing before the [...]
Fools Rush In: What We Really Expect
“For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.” — Alexander Pope I once led some process safety training that involved people from several different plants from [...]
Changing the Bet: The Safety Experience
“When you gamble with safety, you bet your life.” Slogan on an industrial entrance mat The biggest obstacle to getting people to heed safety training is that [...]
Someone Else’s Experience
“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” — C.S.Lewis We all learn from experience. When it comes to brutal lessons, [...]
PSM Auditor: Coach or Umpire?
“Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them…They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame [...]
More Than Three? Limits to Redundancy
“How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can’t even trust his own pants.” — Henry Fonda as Frank, in [...]
Shelter-in-Place: What the Community Should Know
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” — H.K.Williams On July 18, 2019, two people were injured after a chemical fire broke out at Diamond [...]
Seven Questions: The Essence of HazOps
“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” — Francis Bacon There are about a gazillion “best” ways to do HazOps. What they all have in common, however, [...]
For Engineering Students: Some Unsolicited Advice
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” – Albert Einstein My day job is process safety engineer, but I also teach [...]
H21: Is Hydrogen a Safe Fuel?
“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.” - Harlan Ellison I first learned about H21, the project to convert the fuel gas [...]
Unsafe Behaviors and Unsafe Conditions: What’s the Difference?
“I did everything right. I don’t understand why it happened.”— Aleksandr Akimov, Chernobyl engineer You’ve probably heard of the new HBO miniseries, Chernobyl. The show is a [...]
Emotional Stress and Its Effect on Safety
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” — Dale Carnegie Perfect lives don’t exist. We’ve all [...]
One Small Step
“If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we…” — Nearly Everyone Fifty years ago, humans first walked on the moon. It was and [...]
Yes, But…Hardware Fault Tolerance
“Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Universita Committeeatum E Pluribus Unum, I hereby confer upon you the honorary degree of Th.D.,… er, [...]
Putting Safety First on the 4th
“As far as fireworks, it's very dangerous. You shouldn't play with them.” – Jason Pierre-Paul An American Tradition In the United States, the 4th of July holds [...]
A Process Safety Hat Trick
“I hated being pregnant, but I never minded being in labor. I knew I would get a prize at the end.” — Chris Schmidt, mother of four [...]
Dangerous Jobs: Why Do Some Choose Them?
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. -Vincent Van Gogh [...]
As Safe as You Want to Be
“If the government wanted people to drive safely, they’d mandate a spike in the middle of each steering wheel.” — Gordon Tullock We call economics “the dismal [...]
Taking Safety Home
“Safety is a common denominator across all aspects of life...” Doug Bourne After working in a manufacturing environment for 2 years, I have developed a great appreciation [...]
SIL Certification: Necessary or Sufficient?
“Contrary to what many parents tell their children, talent and hard work are neither necessary nor sufficient for economic success.” —Robert H. Frank We are all guilty [...]
Doing HazOps the RIGHT Way!
“Watching two engineers argue is like watching pigs wallow in mud. Eventually you figure out that they do it because they like to.” — Anonymous I’m still [...]
Lab Safety: A Three Phase System
“A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.” George S. Patton, Jr. I intended to begin with “A good plan, well executed, is better than [...]
“It Won’t Happen to Me”: Why We Do Things We Know Are Unsafe
“Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.” — James C. Collins When she was just 21 years old, Candace Carnahan lost her leg in [...]
Double Jeopardy: Impossible?
“Everything is impossible until it is done.” — Robert H. Goddard In 1921, annoyed with ignorant criticism, Robert Goddard published a piece in Scientific American in defense [...]
Notre-Dame Burning: Don’t Wait for the Fire
“If your house were burning down and you could take away one thing, what would it be?”…”I’d take the fire.” — Jean Cocteau, interviewed by André Fraigneau [...]
An Incident? Don’t Recommend Training!
“It’s not how we make mistakes, but how we correct them that defines us.” — Rachel Wolchin One of the most common recommendations made as a result [...]
“No Harm, No Foul”: Madness
“As they depend, not upon the agent, but upon fortune, they cannot be the proper foundation for any sentiment” — Adam Smith We all believe that people [...]
Setting Limits: Where Does Your PSM-Covered Process End?
“Human genius has limits, but stupidity does not.” — Alexandre Dumas, fils Everyone we have ever worked with is accepting, if not downright enthusiastic, about managing process [...]
Grounding the Max 8: Ignoring Near Misses
“The failure of a layer of protection to prevent an incident is not the initiating cause of the incident.” The United States just joined much of the [...]
Worst Case Scenario: What Does It Mean?
“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.” — Randy Pausch The term “worst case” lacks rigor. Let’s stop using it. “Worst case” [...]
Sharing Knowledge: How to Do It and Why It’s Important
“Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.” — Alan Moore It is human nature to seek knowledge - we [...]
Hear No Evil, See No Evil: False Alarms and Spurious Trips
“With a chemical alarm, you’re going to build one that is oversensitive because you would rather the alarm go off and give you a false alarm than [...]
Do You Need a Hero? Emergency Action Plans
“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald Being a firefighter is about as safe as any typical job in the [...]
Why Different PHA Teams Get Different Results
“Differences challenge assumptions.” Anne Wilson Schaef There is a common misunderstanding about the nature of Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs): that they are objective studies. By objective, we [...]
Your Next Blockbuster Adventure: The PHA
“Archeology is the search for fact, not truth. If it’s truth you’re looking for, Dr. Tyree’s philosophy class is right down the hall.” — Indiana Jones, from [...]
Risk Tolerance Criteria: How Low Do You Go?
“Some risks are plainly acceptable and others are plainly unacceptable.” Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens When Justice Stevens wrote that opinion for the majority in the [...]
By the Book: Procedure Violations in Incident Investigations
“There is almost no human action or decision that cannot be made to look flawed and less sensible in the misleading light of hindsight. It is essential [...]
Near Misses: Learning from Experience
“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.” — Vernon Law When hit with the first winter storm of the season, [...]
Lab Safety: Being Interested Isn’t Enough
“Once trained, the hazard often becomes a routine part of their experimentation and researchers perceive themselves to be experts in handling the hazard. Perceived familiarity can shift [...]
New Year, New Safety Goals: What’s the formula for meeting them?
“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” Oprah Winfrey With 2018 coming to an end and 2019 just beginning, we’re [...]
Lock the Gates Behind You
“If you want zero risk in the plant, send everyone home and lock the gate.” — Industrial safety proverb I don’t remember when I first heard it, [...]
Master the Box
“Constraints inspire creativity.” — Christopher Isaac “Biz”Stone, co-founder of Twitter I once asked a young engineer if he knew where the phrase, “Think Outside the Box,” came [...]
Options: Reducing Risk
“To have constructive conversations about … options, one needs to take a calm look at the numbers.” — David J.C. MacKay In addition to the usual hazards [...]
Check Valves: Why We Do the Things We Do
“To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.” —St. Augustine “Check valves are worthless.” Every engineer I know has heard that. Many believe it. Quite a [...]
Not Likely
“None of this will be important if there’s a zombie apocalypse. But how likely is that?” —Jason Vladescu I was once at a conference where I overheard [...]
Things We Worry About: Plane Crashes
“You are now statistically more likely to be elected president of the United States in your lifetime than you are to die in a plane crash. What [...]
Four Key Points: Applying the Meer Decision to Flammable Storage
“Unlike Humpty Dumpty, the Secretary may not give a word whatever meaning she chooses.” —Judge Richard DeBenedetto When the Meer Corporation took the bold and relatively unheard-of [...]
Caps and Plugs: Why We Do The Things We Do
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” —Warren Buffett Caps and plugs serve no process function. It [...]
Things We Worry About: In-plant Derailments
“To invent the train is to invent the rail accident of derailment.” —Paul Virilio When most of us think of train derailments, we think of horrendous events, [...]
A New Enforcement Program: Ammonia and Ammonium Nitrate
“This program is an enforcement tool to emphasize the obligations under existing OSHA standards,” – Kimberly Stille, OSHA Region VII Administrator When the West Fertilizer ammonium nitrate [...]
Operator Stress: How Does it Impact Safety?
“I’ve never seen a tombstone that read ‘Here lies such and such, he was a really great asset to his company.’” Unknown Have you ever tried to [...]
Cracks in the Bridge: FIU Part 2
“…obviously some repairs or whatever will have to be done but from a safety perspective we don’t see that there’s any issue there, so we’re not concerned [...]
Things We Worry About: In-plant Truck Releases
“It’s no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe are bent on spilling it.” —William Somerset Maugham Imagine a tank truck shows [...]
Arkema: A Ham Sandwich
“The district attorney could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if he wanted to.” Judge Sol Wachtler Arkema is a ham sandwich. A year [...]
Before You Hear It on the News
“I just wanted to call you and let you know before you heard it on the news.” —Mike Schmidt When we were newlyweds, my husband once called [...]
That’s Hazardous? Process Safety in Unexpected Places
“If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.” –Heraclitus I work for [...]
Defeating Safety: 3 Reasons People Put Protective Devices Out of Commission and What to Do About Them
“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.” —Napoleon [...]
Breaking Glass: Facility Siting
“I love the sound of breaking glass.” Nick Lowe When I was a kid, the song, “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass,” was on the radio. [...]
Audits and Inspections: What’s the Difference?
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” Colin Powell Before I began working in process safety, [...]
My Process Isn’t Covered by the PSM Standard
“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! [...]
Human Factors: The Power of Words
“Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.” —Hermann Hesse I [...]
Abandon-in-Place or Decommission?
“Let go of the attachment, keep the lesson.” L.J. Vanier On February 16, 2007, a propane fire broke out at the Valero McKee Refinery in Sunray, Texas. [...]
Safety Incidents: Blaming the Victim
“Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.” –Lionel Trilling Although the phrase, “blaming the victim,” has [...]
If It Weren’t For Bad Luck, We’d Have No Luck at All
Only bad golfers are lucky. They’re the ones bouncing balls off trees, curbs, turtles and cars. Good golfers have bad luck. When you hit the ball straight, [...]
How Rare is Rare?
“The unlikely combination of potatoes and pasta does appear in some Italian recipes.” Yotam Ottolenghi People sometimes have a hard time appreciating the difference between risk and [...]
Top 12 Issues for Facility Siting Studies: What Does OSHA Expect?
“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 Changing of the Guard: What Millennial Engineers Need from Their Predecessors
“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” Margaret Fuller I’ve always been fascinated with the Queen’s Guard. My childhood cartoons were full of [...]
10 Years
“An organization, no matter how well designed, is only as good as the people who live and work in it.” -Dee Hock May 22 marks our tenth [...]
Just to be Safe: Can You be Too Conservative?
“I’m a conservative, but I’m not a nut about it.” George H.W.Bush We’ve all heard it. “You need to be conservative, just to be on the safe [...]
In the Line of Duty: Workers’ Memorial Day
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." —John F. Kennedy In [...]
Simplifying Safety Critical
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” Stephen R Covey An important part of managing process safety is deciding [...]
What Does an OSHA Fine Mean?
“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 [...]
Changing Safety Culture
“How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but the lightbulb really has to want to change.” Anonymous A former student, now working [...]
Slow Down: The FIU Bridge Collapse
“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 [...]
Spark Detection
“A mighty flame follows a little spark.” Dante Alighieri Sparks can cause fires. Good news if you want fire. Bad news if fires, or worse, explosions, are [...]
Wait For It! Are Trip Delays Okay?
“But the important thing about learning to wait, I feel sure, is to know what you are waiting for.” —Anna Neagle Many safety instrumented functions (SIFs) are [...]
Workplace Safety – The Road to Success
“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 [...]
Man Down: Knowing When Someone is Hurt
“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.” Isaac Asimov We recently facilitated a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) where the [...]
Seven Habits for More Effective PHAs
“Most people would rather have their wisdom teeth extracted without the benefit of anesthesia than sit through a PHA.” PHAs are tough. They take focus and energy [...]
The Ford Pinto
“The Ford Pinto—the barbecue that seats four.” –Johnny Carson This month, February 2018, will be the 40th anniversary of the California jury verdict in the Grimshaw v. [...]
Who Gets In? Plant Access Control
“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 [...]
Occupational Safety versus Process Safety – What’s the Difference?
“Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of life and death. It is the sum of our contributions to [...]
New Year, New Safety Goals
“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” Oprah Winfrey With 2017 coming to an end and 2018 just beginning, we’re [...]
Workplace Fatalities 2016
Each December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the final statistics workplace fatalities for the previous year. The 2016 statistics and chart package came out last month; [...]
Settling for More: Will a Grain Explosion Lead to Greater Safety?
“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, [...]
So I Know You Understand: Training Verification
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” —Alan [...]
Silent Night: Candle Safety This Christmas
“Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” Washington Irving Christmas is also the [...]
This Is Not a Drill
“Air raid, Pearl Harbor. This is not a drill.” —Lt. Cmdr. Logan Ramsey, 7-Dec-1941 'Beauty' Ramsey sent one of the most famous telegrams of history after watching [...]
Mincing Words
“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” George Orwell, 1984 We’ve all done it. We’re talking about something terrible and [...]
“It’s Always Been That Way”: Normalization of Deviation
“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the [...]
A Safety Lifestyle
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Will Durant In 2006, The Association for Psychological Science published a journal [...]
Safety Lifecycle – Part 3: Developing Risk Tolerance Criteria
“If we accept there is no such thing as ‘zero risk’ then we should not spin the meaning of words with assertions such as ‘all accidents are [...]
Check Valves and Risk Assessment: Should You Take Credit?
“Unless you go forward then you are going back.” - Greg Lake Check valves (CVs) are routinely installed as safeguards against reverse flow. Just as routinely, check [...]
Hope You Won’t Have to Use It: Fire Extinguisher Inspections
“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 [...]
Mechanical Integrity – Basics
“A man who lacks reliability is utterly useless” - Confucius Mechanical Integrity is an essential element of an efficient process and a safe, cost-effective facility. Furthermore, OSHA’s [...]
External Plant Fires: What’s the Likelihood?
“A spark neglected makes a mighty fire.” Robert Herrick During a process hazard analysis (PHA) and a layer of protection analysis (LOPA), the scenario of an external [...]
Getting It Wrong
“Adversity does not build character, it reveals it” -James Lane Allen I have been very interested in what the press has had to say about process safety [...]
Fire and Grain: Prefire Plans for Grain Handling Facilities
“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” – Charles Bukowski A firefighter’s instinct in a fire scenario is to extinguish it, to throw water [...]
Backward Looking Vs. Forward Looking
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” Henry Ford Your company has had an incident or a near miss, the investigation is [...]
OSHA “What’s New” – Public Opportunity to Comment on Collection of Information
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 [...]
Protection Under Pressure: Understanding HIPPS
“Everybody handles pressure differently.” Gerry Cooney High Integrity Pressure Protection Systems (HIPPS) are a type of Safety Instrumented System (SIS) used as an alternative to or in [...]
Red Shirts: Reducing Occupancy to Reduce Risk
“Red Shirt: In Star Trek, red-uniformed security officers and engineers who accompany the main characters on landing parties who often suffer quick deaths.[” Wikipedia I didn’t see [...]
Incident Investigations – The Blame Game
“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” Albert Einstein In Incident Investigations: A Guide for Employers, OSHA defines an incident [...]
Safety Lifecycle: Process Safety Information
“Great design is a multi-layered relationship between human life and its environment.” Naoto Fukasawa Generally speaking, in order to grasp a concept that is multifaceted, I’ve found [...]
Zero Bin Entry
“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” – William Gibson I previously wrote about the two grain bin accidents in Nebraska. That blog [...]
Training – A Recommendation
“It is the sum of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die.” Sir Brian Appleton Okay, I’m not [...]
The Gorilla in the Room: Motor Vehicle Fatalities
“Anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.” George Carlin While work-related fatalities are not a significant portion [...]
Operating Procedures – We Need Them
Every part of an organization is dependent on documented procedures to mitigate risk and improve productivity and performance. – Deborah Kenny At Bluefield Process Safety, I have [...]
Defunding the CSB: Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?
“Defunding the CSB is just plain stupid.” -Mark Rosenzweig, Editor-in-Chief, Chemical Processing It has been a month since the administration announced a list of 19 independent federal [...]
Is America First without the Chemical Safety Board?
“At the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security.” Jodi Rell At Bluefield Process Safety, our mission is to make the world a [...]
Enabling: When a helping hand is no help at all
“Stopping enabling isn’t easy. Nor is it for the faint of heart. Aside from likely pushback and possible retaliation, you may also fear the consequences of doing [...]
Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover – Or a Factory by its Facade
“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” Aldous Huxley We’ve all seen them; factories are scattered across [...]
Pressure, How high is too high?
“Safety is not a gadget but a state of mind.” Eleanor Everet Over-pressure scenarios can be defined as a situation resulting from the internal pressure within piping [...]
Safety Lifecycle: The Foundation
“Without a solid foundation, you’ll have trouble creating anything of value.” Erika Oppenheimer Recently, I’ve been asked by quite a few clients to walk them through the [...]
Will Trump Reverse the EPA’s Revised RMP Rules?
“From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.” President Donald J. Trump President Trump just reversed the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL [...]
Still Higher OSHA Fines
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 [...]
Tolerable Risk, Analysis from a Novice
“Safety is a common denominator across all aspects of life, hence knowledge should always be shared. It is not a matter for industry it is a matter [...]
Human Response: What’s It Worth?
“Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.” Napolean Bonaparte Can operator responses to unsafe conditions be considered [...]
Six Ways to Die
“Two Nebraska workers have lost their lives in 2016 in the grain handling industry and far too many preventable fatalities and injuries continue to occur.” Jeff Funke, [...]
Workplace Safety in the Gig Economy: New BLS data on 2015 fatalities
“The more things change, the more they are the same.” Alphonse Karr Recently released fatal injury data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that self-employed [...]
Consider
“There is no greater evil than men’s failure to consult and to consider.” Sophocles In our office, we write a lot of recommendations. As a rule, we [...]
Candlelight Services
“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” Eleanor Roosevelt Every year, late in December, we are greeted with the news of a church [...]
Voltage Breaker Maintenance: How often is often enough?
“Electricity is really just organized lightning.” George Carlin When I think of circuit breakers, I usually think of the circuit breakers in the panel in the basement [...]
A Beginner’s Guide to Process Safety
“Change can be scary, but you know what’s scarier? Allowing fear to stop you from growing, evolving and progressing.” Mandy Hale Two months ago, I chose to [...]
Making the Workplace Safer: OSHA’s Top 10 Citations
“If all employers simply corrected the top 10 hazards, we are confident the number of deaths, amputations and hospitalizations would drastically decline.” Tom Galassi, director of enforcement [...]
The Key Bridge Collapse: Are There Lessons for Us Now?
“Catastrophic bridge accidents are rare, but the number and severity of those due to ship collisions far exceed those due to winds, waves, and earthquakes combined.” — [...]
Bump Caps: When Are They Appropriate?
“Do nothing that is of no use.” — Miyamoto Musashi I have been in several facilities recently that used bump caps as head protection. I make it [...]
“OSHA Says”: Eye Protection
“What we see depends mainly on what we are looking for.” — John Lubbock Every chemical plant I have ever been in has these minimum requirements for [...]
When A Chemical Truck Rolls Over: Gawkers
“It’s what you do next that counts.” — Lisa Mackay One of my favorite movies is The Great Waldo Pepper starring Robert Redford as a barnstorming pilot [...]
“OSHA Says”: Hard Hat Colors
“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.” — George Carlin I was recently astonished to hear someone talking [...]
Jargon: Keeping it Simple
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” — often misattributed to Albert Einstein I don’t spend much time in court rooms. I’m [...]
Too Extreme for Work? Cold Snaps and Heat Waves
“Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” — Charles Dudley Warner A few weeks ago, we were treated to the sight of icicles [...]
Resin-Based Concrete: The Hazards of Handling New Materials
“When an engineer has built a bridge, the fact that a cat can pass over the bridge is no proof that the bridge is good. A train [...]
Deadly Jobs Revisited
“Automation is driving the decline of banal and repetitive tasks.” — Amber Rudd Five years ago, I had the opportunity to give a TED talk called “Deadly [...]
The New BLS Fatality Report: Safety in a Post-Pandemic World
“The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.” — Chinua Achebe Back in December 2021, the BLS report showed that [...]
Heavy Metal: What Is It?
“Heavy metal? Like Rock of Ages?” — Isis Hainsworth in Metal Lords It’s hard to pin down a definition of heavy metal, whether you are talking about [...]
Choosing The Perfect Footwear for Work
“…I can feel it in my toes. Christmas is all around me. And so the feeling grows.” — Bill Nighy in Love Actually Although I have on [...]
Whatever Your Reason: Incentives for Compliance
“Rather than a prosecutor saying, ‘you have nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong,’ a more accurate portrayal would be ‘if I decide you have [...]
Safe Limits for Oxygen Exposure: Why 19.5% to 23.5%?
“Love is like oxygen. You get too much, you get too high; not enough and you’re gonna die.” — Andy Scott, of Sweet OSHA standards define safe [...]
Pyrophoria: Spontaneous Combustion
“Do I mind if you smoke? I don’t mind if you burst into flames. Just don’t light that cigarette.” — Anonymous, derived from Sarah Bernhardt’s comment to [...]
Carbon Dioxide: A Simple Asphyxiant?
“In the last two decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of people have died of carbon dioxide asphyxiation near volcanoes in Cameroon and in Indonesia.” — Allison [...]
All Gases Are Hazardous
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash, it’s a gas.” — Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, of The Rolling Stones Ever notice how the popular media never refer to chemicals. No, [...]
Crossing Streams: Safety During Simultaneous Operations
“Don’t cross the streams.” -Egon from Ghostbusters It doesn’t take much for two tasks to interfere with one another out in general industry. Work environments can be [...]