Ooooh, ouch, I don't recommend letting someone from maintenance turn off
science experiments no matter how good the documentation is. Just one
example - shutting down a vacuum line system could result in a pressure
explosion or liquid oxygen condensation. Someone's experiment that has
been running for weeks could be ruined by a well-intentioned mis-step.
Expect severe pushback from your faculty and research staff on that. I
know I would firmly oppose it as a faculty member and would expect my
chair to fight it, too.
That said, an emergency action plan that ensures the responsible emergency
party for each lab/facility is notified would be a good one. Most every
university already has the emergency contact information for each lab
posted by the doorways. And many campuses already have
email/phone/messaging broadcast systems for emergencies that can be
targeted at subsets of the campus population. Having someone assigned to
ensuring that each lab's responsible party is contacted is a much better
plan than trying to write up procedures for equipment or experiments that
are way beyond the skill set of maintenance personnel and likely to be
obsolete when needed.
Rob Toreki
On Jul 8, 2010, at 8:34 PM, Schmidt-Nebril, Kathleen wrote:
My university recently was hit with a four day power outage due to severe
storms. Our science building is recently new and has a back up generator
however none of the main lab instruments or equipment were backed up to
it. Hoods, lights and ventilation were. In the end we are looking at a
huge insurance claim and are now trying to prepare an action plan for
each of our labs in the event we go through something like this again. I
am the CHO for the department and was asked to put this together. Does
anyone know what OSHA standard, if any, I should be looking at for this?
They want to incorporate a "what to do" list for example if none of the
scientists were around someone from maintenance could follow it to turn
off sensitive equipment in our absence. My thought on that is would we
need to train and document anyone who might have to respond and use our
action list?
Kathleen
=====================================================
Safety Emporium - Lab & Safety Supplies featuring brand names
you know and trust. Visit us at http://www.SafetyEmporium.com
esales**At_Symbol_Here**safetyemporium.com or toll-free: (866) 326-5412
Fax: (856) 553-6154, PO Box 1003, Blackwood, NJ 08012
There is no OSHA regulation that covers
this type of emergency. They only have the HAZWOPER reg (1910.120) for
hazardous materials emergency releases and the requirement for a fire safety
plan (1910.38). NFPA 45 also has a requirement that labs develop their
own emergency plan and they mention utility outages.
Here is the lab emergency checklists
& info that I have for our university: http://www.stonybrook.edu/ehs/lab/labemerg.shtml
As others said, each lab needs to plan
for shutting down their own equipment. Some large groups here have an "on
call" arrangement with the local dry ice distributor. That's been
our biggest problem. We've lost power for extended periods here & the
lab freezers are not on the emergency back up generators. Hard to see your
life's work melt away......
Kim Auletta
Lab Safety Specialist
EH&S Z=6200
Stony Brook University
kauletta**At_Symbol_Here**notes.cc.sunysb.edu
631-632-3032
EH&S Web site: http://www.stonybrook.edu/ehs/lab/
Remember to wash your hands!
| From:
| ILPI <info**At_Symbol_Here**ILPI.COM>
|
| To:
| DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU
|
| Date:
| 07/09/2010 06:40 AM
|
| Subject:
| Re: [DCHAS-L] Emergency Action Plan
for science labs
|
| Sent by:
| DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU> |
Ooooh, ouch, I don't recommend letting someone from maintenance
turn off science experiments no matter how good the documentation is. Just
one example - shutting down a vacuum line system could result in a pressure
explosion or liquid oxygen condensation. Someone's experiment that
has been running for weeks could be ruined by a well-intentioned mis-step.
Expect severe pushback from your faculty and research staff on that.
I know I would firmly oppose it as a faculty member and would expect
my chair to fight it, too.
That said, an emergency action plan that ensures the responsible
emergency party for each lab/facility is notified would be a good one.
Most every university already has the emergency contact information
for each lab posted by the doorways. And many campuses already have
email/phone/messaging broadcast systems for emergencies that can be targeted
at subsets of the campus population. Having someone assigned to ensuring
that each lab's responsible party is contacted is a much better plan than
trying to write up procedures for equipment or experiments that are way
beyond the skill set of maintenance personnel and likely to be obsolete
when needed.
Rob Toreki
On Jul 8, 2010, at 8:34 PM, Schmidt-Nebril, Kathleen wrote:
My university recently was hit with a four day power outage
due to severe storms. Our science building is recently new and has
a back up generator however none of the main lab instruments or equipment
were backed up to it. Hoods, lights and ventilation were. In the
end we are looking at a huge insurance claim and are now trying to prepare
an action plan for each of our labs in the event we go through something
like this again. I am the CHO for the department and was asked to
put this together. Does anyone know what OSHA standard, if any, I
should be looking at for this? They want to incorporate a "what
to do" list for example if none of the scientists were around someone
from maintenance could follow it to turn off sensitive equipment in our
absence. My thought on that is would we need to train and document
anyone who might have to respond and use our action list?
Kathleen
======================================================
Safety Emporium - Lab & Safety Supplies featuring
brand names
you know and trust. Visit us at http://www.SafetyEmporium.com
esales**At_Symbol_Here**safetyemporium.com
or toll-free: (866) 326-5412
Fax: (856) 553-6154, PO Box 1003, Blackwood, NJ 08012
