From: ILPI Support <info**At_Symbol_Here**ILPI.COM>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Safety Showers, Drains and ADA Compliance
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 16:09:41 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: 10DC9768-5F6B-498A-AF8F-56D8B548E76F**At_Symbol_Here**ilpi.com
In-Reply-To


Clearly, the solution is to install a floor decal with a *picture* of a floor drain on it so people *think* there's a floor drain.


Lack of floor drains didn't keep us from using a shower during an accident during grad school.  Sure was a neat way to determine that the building lists to one side about 3" because that's how deep the far wall flooded while the hallway side of the room was basically dry.

Visited a school not long after a two-lab fire on the upper floor of a maybe 5 story chemistry building.  Not sure if there were floor drains or if they had the capacity to deal with that kind of water output, but the water went through each floor all the way to the basement, taking out laboratory notebooks and other irreplaceable papers along the way until it hit and fried the NMR machine in the basement.  The "expense" of floor drains is a false economy that is valid only until the first time they are needed.  It's like all the young healthy folks without health insurance until they end up in the emergency room.


In related false economy safety news that parallels this discussion, the National Academy of Sciences, in a report funded by the Interior Department (see http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=25032 ), recommends that the agency work closely with the oil industry to establish standards to prevent spills from bolt failures on undersea safety equipment used in deepwater drilling (which is apparently a contributing factor in the Deepwater Horizon incident). 8 years on from that disaster, the industry apparently has no standards or rules that cover bolt inspections.  However, the Trump administration, intent in removing "burdensome regulations", has called for the removal of an Obama-era requirement for a third party to certify that such safety devices are "designed to function in the most extreme conditions to which it will be exposed and that the device will function as designed"; see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/trump-offshore-drilling.html  Guess they believe it can't happen again, although it's curious that the same administration has called for drilling off every state's coast except the one that is home to Mar-a-Lago.

The administration's goal here is to save maybe $20 million a year by running the risk of another Deepwater Horizon-level event versus doing things the right and safe way which might cost a bit of money but would prevent tens of billions of dollars in damages and a significant number of workers lives.  False economy on an even grander scale, alas.

BTW, the NAS report also states the government's standards "should promote an enhanced safety culture across organizations and disciplines - one that is reflected in work rules and encourages all levels of the organization to improve the reliability of undersea bolts."  Good to see someone calling for safety culture and sad to see that the industry apparently is still lacking one eight years after a horrible lesson apparently not learned.

Rob Toreki

 ======================================================
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




On Mar 12, 2018, at 3:11 PM, Wayne Wood <wayne.wood**At_Symbol_Here**MCGILL.CA> wrote:

Emergency showers are seldom put to use in laboratory settings. Installing showers without drains practically eliminates the chance that someone will actually ever use them so why bother to install them; are they just decorations?
 
Pardon me for getting cynical but in this day and age of FAKE news maybe the answer lies in just installing FAKE showers.  No drain, no water supply, no plumbing whatsoever, just a FAKE installation. Or just a picture of an installation, scotch-taped to the wall. Think about all the money we could save! Of course being the professionals that we are we would have to FAKE our due diligence by way of:
 
FAKE testing and inspections
FAKE tags
FAKE signage
FAKE safety training
FAKE safety policy and protocols
And lastly, FAKE safety officers to pretend to do all this work
 
And please disregard this message, it is a genuine FAKE.
 
W.
 
Wayne Wood | Director, Environmental Health and Safety - Directeur, Sant, securit et environnement| McGill University | 3610 rue McTavish Street, 4th floor | Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 1Y2 | Tel: (514) 398-2391 
 
 
 
 
 
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU] On Behalf Of Wilhelm, Monique
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2018 10:33 PM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Safety Showers, Drains and ADA Compliance
 
There are always so many questions about safety showers and eye washes.  I think that we need to have a symposium on them-.I will have to remember this for Orlando
 
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU] On Behalf Of Bruce Van Scoy
Sent: Thursday, February 1, 2018 6:07 PM
To: 
DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Safety Showers, Drains and ADA Compliance
 
Melissa,
Push for the drains!  Show the cost over time of having testing performed at the recommended frequency without them vs. having them.  My experience has shown when the drains were removed due to initial installation costs (proposed as "value engineering"), it wasn't too long after that they were screaming about the frequency of performing flushing/testing.  If memory serves, I provided a CDC reference about the eye-damaging bacteria that reproduce in stagnant pipes with the presence of chlorine.  The architects and accountants were not available later to justify or defend their "value engineering" decisions, but the initial construction cost did save a few dollars.  My recommendation is to push for the drains or define accountability standards to apply later, e.g., is installation cost v. recovery in 1-yr or 5-yr?
BruceV   
 
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU] On Behalf Of Suzanne Howard
Sent: Thursday, February 1, 2018 10:54 AM
To: 
DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Safety Showers, Drains and ADA Compliance
 
Hi Melissa,
We are in the process of designing a new science bldg and was told that we can't have drains for the safety showers and the eyewashes.  Our architects state the reason is that the size of the drains would have to be very large.....?  They also indicate that the cost for plumbing is too great.  Have not yet decided if EHS should push for drains or not, or, if it is even possible. 
Suzanne
 
-- 
Suzanne Howard
Director EHS
Wellesley College
300 Central Street
Wellesley, MA
781-283-3882
 
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Melissa Anderson <mwanderson08**At_Symbol_Here**gmail.com> wrote:
Greetings Everyone,
 
We're working with architects right now to plan out chem labs for a new science building. We've asked for drains under the safety showers and were told that wouldn't be possible because in order to be ADA compliant and have drains, the safety showers would take up too much space- has anyone encountered such an argument? 
 
(Note, we're extremely constrained on space due to some very complicated politics I won't go into here, so making the labs bigger is not an option.)
 
Thanks,
Melissa Anderson
Instructor
Pasadena City College
--- For more information about the DCHAS-L e-mail list, contact the Divisional secretary at secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org Follow us on Twitter **At_Symbol_Here**acsdchas


 
 
--- For more information about the DCHAS-L e-mail list, contact the Divisional secretary at secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org Follow us on Twitter **At_Symbol_Here**acsdchas
--- For more information about the DCHAS-L e-mail list, contact the Divisional secretary at secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org Follow us on Twitter **At_Symbol_Here**acsdchas
--- For more information about the DCHAS-L e-mail list, contact the Divisional membership chair at membership**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org Follow us on Twitter **At_Symbol_Here**acsdchas
--- For more information about the DCHAS-L e-mail list, contact the Divisional membership chair at membership**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org Follow us on Twitter **At_Symbol_Here**acsdchas

Previous post   |  Top of Page   |   Next post



The content of this page reflects the personal opinion(s) of the author(s) only, not the American Chemical Society, ILPI, Safety Emporium, or any other party. Use of any information on this page is at the reader's own risk. Unauthorized reproduction of these materials is prohibited. Send questions/comments about the archive to secretary@dchas.org.
The maintenance and hosting of the DCHAS-L archive is provided through the generous support of Safety Emporium.