Anybody ever stop to think that if the shower is plugged and shower water is contained by a berm any worker who uses the shower in an emergency will be standing in a pool of contaminated water? In fact, we’ve had cases where a worker sprayed with acid or toxic chemicals can’t stand, in which case he or she would be sitting or lying in the contaminated water.

Hi All,

Sorry, (again) I did not mean to say that the berm would catch the water from the shower. J

When your state or local agency asks you to put a berm around the safety showers, they don’t care whether the shower water will go down the drain or not. The berm will prevent spills from going down the drain, and if the shower water is prevented too, that probably works for them just fine.

As someone pointed out, if they ask you to put a berm around the shower drain, you might as well just plug it, which is what we did. Now nothing will ever go down the drain, which makes our POTW happy (and our fees lower), and if we ever activate the shower, we will get a huge mess that we will have to clean up as best we can. BUT, the fees we would have to pay to keep the drains open might pay many times over for any shower incidents we might have.

If I ever get to the point where I understand this stuff, I am going to retire and write a bookJ

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From: ACTSNYC**At_Symbol_Here**CS.COM [mailto:ACTSNYC**At_Symbol_Here**CS.COM]
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: Lab safety showers

Believing that the spill could be contained while the drench water would be released is the same as beleiving you could assign a section of a swimming pool for peeing.

Monona

In a message dated 10/29/2010 6:13:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time, retrosynthesis**At_Symbol_Here**GMAIL.COM writes:

My understanding is that the curb is meant to keep any spill that may occur in the laboratory from reaching the drain; it is not meant to contain the drench water.  There has been no mention of containing or collecting the drench water (thank goodness).

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Best regards,

Betsy Shelton
512.636.1905
retrosynthesis**At_Symbol_Here**gmail.com

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