Letter from the Editor

Safety Procedures are not to be taken lightly and are not a formality

Hello everyone! Issue 2 was a good time. It was a bit tougher than issue 1 mainly just due to the weekend that it fell on. Most people go home for Thanksgiving, including The Iron Warrior staff. However I would like to quickly thank the few people who helped out this weekend, whether it was here in the office or via the magic of the internet. Thank you!

Now onto my blurb about safety. I spent my last work term in Calgary working for an oil and gas company. Now before you get all anti oil-sand on me, I was not working with the production of heavy oil. I was working with process safety and occupational safety. A ramble about environmentalism and oil-sands will be an editorial saved for another time. Working with safety definitely changed my view of the world around me.

I am now super aware of all the safety mechanisms or safety features put in place to protect me and to protect others. I am also inherently aware of the dangers related to compressed gas and various other chemicals. My friends in Calgary can attest to that last statement. We went camping a couple times over the summer term and I would have a minor panic attack if a propane gas tank was left out in the sun or if the tank was not standing up right. My friends often tease me about it when I point out these situations. I realize that my caution was a little excessive, but I have learned that it is better to be super cautious than sorry, as I would not like to be part of a flammable and explosive plume of propane nor would I like my friends to be part of such an unfortunate incident.

Now you might be wondering if this relates back to you. Well it does! Safety is everyone’s business. If someone isn’t being safe, you are possibly in danger, especially in a lab. Even the Nanotechnology Engineering program cranked up its safety requirements for labs and what not. We now have a safety quiz at the beginning of every single lab, these quizzes are composed of questions about the MSDS, procedures for using some of the equipment and the safety gear required for the lab. Mind you this ends up creating a gazillion questions about wearing goggles. This whole process is already becoming a little bit redundant, but safety is redundant in nature. Hopefully this standard for safety will be transferred over to the other labs, such as the ones in Chemical, Mechanical and all other forms of labs in general.

Now let us talk a bit about safety at work, which I am sure you’ve all heard about. You have the right to refuse unsafe work. You have the right to proper training. We often forget how important training is. I mean, for me, I know that whenever I get a new phone or some new device I just play around with it until I figure out how it works and what not. There is little danger in this, I mean what will happen? We’ll accidently open the internet browser and download a few kbs of data and we’ll spend a few extra dollars. No big deal right? Well this same practice with figuring stuff out by yourself, should not be applied in the industry. No matter where you work. WorkSafeBC released a video about incidents that happened to youth that got caught in some unfortunate situations. Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMT5OFw5OCQ. They may not have made the greatest choices but if they had a bit more training, maybe some of these incidents could have been prevented. Many people assume that safety is common sense, and in all fairness it often is. However, when you are working with new machinery that you don’t quite understand, common sense is no longer common. There is no basic knowledge for common sense to develop off of and therefore it is developed incorrectly as the correct assumptions cannot be made. Every one of these incidents started with some pretty simple tasks that aren’t that dangerous; however because of the situation and the other circumstances that were involved they ended up risking their extremities and in some cases their lives. The people have been forever changed by these accidents and will never be the same again. Now most of us would say, “I’m smarter than that; I wouldn’t do something that stupid,” however we forget that when we look back at these events we are shown all the exterior circumstances that lead to the outcome. When someone is in that situation, they either don’t notice all the hazards around them or they falsely evaluate the amount of danger associated with the hazard. Without the training and experience that more seasoned workers have, we cannot take the same shortcut as we do not understand all the risks involved in the task and thus cannot account for them.

Safety in process design is also important. There are often many safety mechanisms and procedures designed into systems so that nothing bad happens. Let us take the Piper Alpha incident, an oil production platform exploded, resulting in a fire that destroyed the rig and killed 167 workers. This incident illustrates the need for safety mechanisms and the need for redundancy in safety. It also emphasizes the need for safety to be taken seriously and not just as a formality. There were two large gas pumps that supplied the electric generators on the platform. Nearby there were gas pipes that connected two other platforms to Piper Alpha and served as a passage to the mainland. One of these pumps, pump A, was under maintenance and the work was not finished before the end of the shift. The supervisor in charge filled out a work permit stating that pump A was not operational. This work permit was supposed to be taken to the engineer-in-charge to sign off. He was busy so the supervisor left it on the desk for the engineer to complete and sort properly after. Although this appears to be a redundant formality, it was important for safety. The form should have been accompanied with a person to person exchange, but it failed to get enough attention. Now elsewhere on the platform there was an automatic fire-fighting system which pumped water in from the ocean to put out fires on the platform. This system was placed under manual control to prevent the divers working in the water from getting sucked into the pumps.  Back to the pumps, the shift that was doing maintenance on pump A was now off and a new shift was working. Pump B failed and the supervisor, not having been informed that pump A was still not operational, went to start up pump A. Upon activation of pump A, there was a huge release of natural gas. The gas exploded, destroying the emergency intercom system, control room and nearby pipelines. The engineer-in-charge hit the emergency shut off to stop production on the platform. However, natural gas was still back feeding from the other platforms. Another pipe over-pressured, releasing more gas to fuel the fire. At this point, workers had gathered on the accommodation deck, in the path of the smoke coming from the fire. However, with no communication on the ship and no way to start the fire fighting system, the fire continued and consumed more gas pipelines. The accommodation deck lost support and fell into the ocean along with other parts of the platform. Had there been a backup communication system the workers could have been told to evacuate the platform, however their emergency procedures told them to gather in the accommodation deck and wait for further instructions. Overall the Piper Alpha incident was caused by not applying full safety procedures because they seemed redundant at the time.

In conclusion, safety is there to keep you safe. It can be redundant and therefore annoying, but redundancy makes safety more effective. It is not just a formality and should always be taken seriously and understood.

Other than that, stay safe and have fun!