With our new format, you now have ready access to several additional features. For example, you can go right to the HSE page on the Rochester Business Alliance web site by clicking "HSE Information" under Quick Links on the left side of this page. Also under quick links, you can access the HSE Updates for the last twelve months. 

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has completed a 56-minute video on the causes and lessons learned from its three-year investigation of the BP Texas City Refinery Explosion that killed fifteen and injured hundreds. The video can be viewed on-line, downloaded to your computer, or requested as a DVD. To start the process, click here, then click on the photo box in the top right of the CSB home page.

The Health and Safety Executive in the UK has conducted extensive research on slips and falls that may be of interest to many of you. The index to their reports is available by clicking here. After finding that many slip measurement machines were unreliable, they had to offer something to put in their place, so they went to work on some very useful research. For example, in the food manufacturing and distribution industries, they found that cleanability and slip resistance are not mutually exclusive.

You may have seen this, but it may still be worth checking again as a potential handout to all your employees to help them with their at-home disaster planning efforts. The Department of Homeland Security has a two-sided card that covers the contents of a basic emergency supply kit to help deal with all kinds of hazards and disasters. You'll find the PDF file here. 

According to NOAA, a new 11-year solar activity cycle began in January. The activity is significant because it brings increased risks to power grids, critical communications, GPS signals, and even cell phone and ATM transactions. While activity is expected to reach the maximum in 2011 or 2012, NOAA says that devastating storms can occur at any time. For details, click here. 

The safety Power Point files housed at the University of Vermont have been updated with many new titles. The files have been donated over the years by participants on the UVM safety list and many are quite good. Be careful, however, to make sure that the file(s) you choose are current, accurate and reflect the message you want to give your people. The files are free, but credit should be given to UVM and the author/developer of the file you are using. To access all the programs, click here. 

I know - this is upstate New York and we don't have wildfires like they do in other parts of the country. But, as the earth warms, weather patterns change, and things get dryer, a significant wildfire is not out of the realm of possibility. With spring arriving, it makes sense to look at the site on which your facility sits and make sure that you've made it as resistant to wildfire as you can. It's also a subject for your safety meetings. For an excellent review of all the aspects of wildfire, take a look at the Disaster Safety web site here. 

Dr. George Edmonson, interventional radiologist with St. Paul (MN) Radiology, has developed a process of injecting clot-busting drugs into frostbite sites using angiography that has been highly successful in opening clots in frozen limbs that avoid the amputation of damaged extremities. If you have workers who are subject to frostbite, be sure to raise the option for such treatment if the need arises.

New resources related to combustible dust have been posted on the OSHA Web site to help employers understand hazards and ways to prevent those hazards. The resources include a Safety and Health Information Bulletin that details the issue and solutions (click here), a two-page fact sheet that gives an excellent summary for training (click here) and a poster that lists all forms of dust that may be combustible, (click here). 

At the General Electric Medical System facility in Warrensville Heights, Ohio, 80 percent of all employees participate in an EHS team of some kind. Teams include emergency response, first aid, safety inspections, accident investigations, job safety analysis, and more. There is a safety team on each shift and 21 safety process element champions serve as expert resources to the other employees. This OSHA VPP site truly has employee ownership of the safety process.

Approximately 14,000 employers received a letter this month from OSHA alerting them that their injury and illness rates are above the national average, and that the agency can offer assistance to help fix safety and health hazards. The notifications were based on data reported by approximately 80,000 employers surveyed by OSHA last year (the survey collected injury and illness data from calendar year 2006).