Federal regulators issue record fines against TVA over Watts Bar startup problems in 2015
Federal regulators have slapped the biggest combined civil penalties ever against the Tennessee Valley Authority for a handful of violations of federal regulations during the restart of one of its Tennessee nuclear reactors.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday proposed three fines totaling $903,471 against TVA for providing inaccurate and insufficient information to regulators and violating proper procedures in November 2015 when pressurized water levels rose uncontrollably during the restart of the Unit 1 reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, Tennessee.
The NRC also issued citations against two managers and the plant operator at Watts Bar for their roles in the 2015 incident and for failing to adequately investigate and correct the problem.
Although the incident did not ultimately cause any harm to the public or plant employees, NRC investigators criticized TVA’s safety culture and approach to running its newest nuclear plant where TVA also added another nuclear reactor in 2016. That reactor remains the last new commercial reactor added to America’s power grid.
In a letter to TVA Friday, the head of NRC’s enforcement special project team, Kenneth G. O’Brien, singled out the top officials at Watts Bar five years ago for not giving plant operators enough discretion to stop or delay plant operations unless they could directly prove there was a safety problem.
Taking your safety temperature
More than 86,000 patients who live along Southwest Florida’s waterways or within 1,200 square miles of Lee County benefit from Lee County EMS’ (LCEMS) first-rate medical services each year. This respected EMS service runs both ALS and BLS ambulances as well as an air medical program. But something is different at LCEMS – an exceptional focus on improving patient safety to support the best possible care in the safest manner for all patients.
PATIENT SAFETY BOOT CAMP While patient safety has always been a core value for LCEMS, the focus was heightened in March 2017 when Lee County hosted the Center for Patient Safety’s first EMS Patient Safety Boot Camp. This day-long interactive session helps leaders set the patient safety tone with improved communication and a non-punitive culture. LCEMS’ patient safety program focuses heavily on a just culture framework, encouraging employees to self-report errors and near misses. These reports form the basis for increased learning and improvement.
Singareni Collieries Company Limited sets focus on safety precautions
In its quest for greater productivity with utmost focus on safety in coal mines, the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) is striving to foster a sustainable safety culture by involving the safety committee members of each coal mine in the effective implementation of the Safety Management Plan (SMP) in their respective coal mines.
The safety wing of the State-owned premier coal producing company has conducted a slew of training programmes for the members of the safety committees in various coal mines in Kothagudem region earlier this year.
The company has resumed the training programmes after a short break of a couple of weeks owing to the coronavirus-induced crisis consequent upon its renewed plans to scale up coal production to make up for the production losses suffered during the recent lockdown period.
UPDATE - Lithuanian President Urges EU To Stop Commissioning Of ‘Unsafe’ Belarusian NPP The first Belarusian NPP started generating power on Tuesday. Lithuania has immediately ceased all power trading with its neighbor.
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, in turn, sent a note of protest to Belarus on Wednesday.
“Belarus is urged to postpone the commissioning of its nuclear facility until the highest standards of nuclear safety and environmental requirements have been met,” the ministry said in a press release.
According to the ministry, the NPP has been constructed in violation of the Espoo and Aarhus conventions and Belarus has maintained only “selective cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
“Lithuania also reminds that Belarus has so far failed to answer questions regarding a proper seismic safety assessment of the Ostrovets site, its potential impact on the environment and the population of our country, safety culture, resilience to the impact of a heavy aircraft crash, and other issues raised by the responsible Lithuanian authorities,” it continued.
Ep.51 How do experts manage fuzzy role boundaries?
Topics:
Dr. Neale’s PhD thesis. How he gained access to the F-band community. The tension between people in front-line occupations and safety professionals. Improvising and standardizing. The tension between individuals and bureaucracy. How to be an effective communicator. What happens after a big fire season. Becoming a fire behavior analyst.
Quotes:
“When you’re interacting with somebody, what is your expertise based in?”
“There’s no one way of doing it right and any attempt to wrangle these people, these professionals into being all one type of person, they will resist it.”
“The theme that expresses itself in a particular part of people’s work, expresses itself in many other parts of their work; it’s not a contained problem…”
A conversation with Anthony Cacciatore of Satellite Shelters Inc.
What is the most important part of your position?
A: The most important part of my role is to empower our employees to go home to their loved ones in the same shape as they came in to work. I help facilitate the distribution of tools, training and best practices necessary for employees to take the responsibility of safety into their own hands. Safety can’t come from just one person in an organization. I could be up on a soapbox, preaching safety to our employees, but if they’re simply listening and not living the safety culture, we’re failing as an organization.
At its core, my responsibility is to continue developing the safety culture throughout the organization. From the president of Satellite Shelters to the new hire we just brought on yesterday, the value of safety needs to live in everyone if we are to maintain the safety culture at Satellite.
Federal Appeals Court Deals Blow to OSHA’s Ability to Cite Repeat Violations On Tuesday, October 27, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued a long- awaited decision in Sec’y of Labor v. Wynnewood Refining Co., LLC. That case originated in 2012 when OSHA inspected the company following a boiler explosion that killed two employees. OSHA issued several repeat citation items under the Process Safety Management (PSM) standard. The company litigated the validity of the citations and repeat classifications at trial and the Administrative Law Judge affirmed all but one of the PSM violations but changed several repeat violations to serious. The ALJ found that the violations occurred under Wynnewood, Inc. and not Wynnewood LLC, a new company formed in December 2011 after Wynnewood, LLC’s parent company acquired all the stock in Wynnewood, Inc’s parent company.
On appeal to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (“the Commission”), the Commission upheld the PSM violations but declined to find repeat liability finding that OSHA did not satisfy the substantial continuity test. Under that test, the Commission considers the totality of the circumstances of the change in ownership to determine whether the current company should be held liable for repeat citations based on citations from the previous company. In making this determination, the Commission applies a three-factor test: (1) the nature of the business, including the continuity in the type of business products or services offered and customers served to determine whether the activities associated with the business and the inherent safety and health considerations have changed; (2) the jobs and working conditions because of their close correlation with particular safety and health hazards; and (3) the continuity of personnel, specifically those who control decisions related to safety and health because their decisions related directly to how well the employer complies with the requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
The Commission found that the first two factors leaned in favor finding substantial continuity test, but OSHA did not satisfy the third factor. Although there were many supervisors who were the same at either company, “these managers merely implemented the safety policies set by the previous parent company and then the new parent company because new management focuse[d] on improving safety, health, and the proper implementation of [the] PSM [standard]” and that it made substantial investments in safety personnel and equipment, causing a “safety culture shift.”
The Tenth Circuit determined that the Commission correctly applied the substantial continuity test. The Tenth Circuit then reviewed the Commission’s decision under the substantial evidence standard, in which the appellate court asks whether a reasonable mind would consider the evidence adequate to support the conclusion, without reweighing the evidence, second-guessing the factual inferences made from the evidence, or substituting their own judgment on witness credibility. In so doing, the Tenth Circuit determined that substantial evidence in the record supported the Commission’s finding that there was no substantial continuity between Wynnewood, Inc. and Wynnewood.
This decision affects employers across all industries on the issue of repeat citations when companies change ownership and the new ownership makes significant safety improvements. This decision reinforces the Commission’s decision which properly recognized that a new owner should not be penalized for the OSHA history of its predecessor, where it is striving to improve safety and health in the workplace. It also represents a check on OSHA’s authority to issue Repeat citations.
Boettcher on what Waste Management looks for from a culture perspective when evaluating companies for potential M&A deals:
“We’re people-first and [champion] safety, and those are our two biggest cultural elements, and if the company doesn’t have a really good safety record, that’s a big red flag for us because that’s something that takes a while to get corrected. … So, we look for a good safety culture. It also has legacy issues when the safety culture is bad in any aspects of the landfill or logistical elements of that business, so we look at [safety] probably first, and the rest you can deal with.”
Boettcher on what Waste Management looks for from a culture perspective when evaluating companies for potential M&A deals:
“We’re people-first and [champion] safety, and those are our two biggest cultural elements, and if the company doesn’t have a really good safety record, that’s a big red flag for us because that’s something that takes a while to get corrected. … So, we look for a good safety culture. It also has legacy issues when the safety culture is bad in any aspects of the landfill or logistical elements of that business, so we look at [safety] probably first, and the rest you can deal with.”
[Improvements at Stepping Hill’s A&E after ‘inadequate’ rating - but inspectors say more work is still needed]
The report added: “The increase in staffing numbers and the changes in the nursing leadership had led to an improved patient safety culture in the department.”
Overall, the CQC said the ‘momentum of change’ at Stepping Hill’s A&E needed to be maintained to ensure improvements were sustainable in the medium and long term, including times of increased pressure, like winter.
NASA manager highlights teamwork, communication
According to Watson-Morgan, effective communication, strong teamwork, and studying past successes and failures, as well as the risk culture of other government agencies, help the collective NASA-industry-stakeholder team understand the risks, develop solutions to minimize them, and accept what risks cannot be eliminated.
NASA and the spaceflight industry will use the Moon as a testbed to further evaluate and demonstrate technologies, processes and procedures needed to send humans to Mars.
“On the Moon, we can take reasonable risks while astronauts are just three days from home,” Watson-Morgan said. “There we will prove technologies and mature systems necessary to live and work on another world before embarking on what could be a two- to three-year mission to Mars.”
Are Generational Categories Meaningful Distinctions for Workforce Management?
Headlines frequently appear that purport to highlight the differences among workers of different generations and explain how employers can manage the wants and needs of each generation. But is each new generation really that different from previous ones? Are there fundamental differences among generations that impact how they act and interact in the workplace? Or are the perceived differences among generations simply an indicator of age-related differences between older and younger workers or a reflection of all people adapting to a changing workplace?
Are Generational Categories Meaningful Distinctions for Workforce Management?
Headlines frequently appear that purport to highlight the differences among workers of different generations and explain how employers can manage the wants and needs of each generation. But is each new generation really that different from previous ones? Are there fundamental differences among generations that impact how they act and interact in the workplace? Or are the perceived differences among generations simply an indicator of age-related differences between older and younger workers or a reflection of all people adapting to a changing workplace?
NBAF UPDATE | Serving the greater good
This past month, we have been grateful to speak with several community groups across the region about the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. From those discussions, we know that one of the most common concerns about the facility is safety.
For NBAF to serve the greater good of protecting our food supply, agricultural economy and public health, it also must have an internal focus on safety. NBAF’s success with safety will be attributed to a combination of three basic core areas: people, procedures and facility.
Focusing on people first, we’ve discovered NBAF employees have a common desire to serve that greater good and are naturally focused on safety and security. This shared interest is a lifelong passion for many of our employees. … The partnerships also will help serve the greater good through outcomes like vaccines and faster diagnostics for high-consequence animal diseases. With Dr. Wilson’s extensive experience in many biosecurity facilities, he has a great background to provide guidance and suggestions to continue to expand NBAF’s safety and security culture.
The second area contributing to our safety culture is incorporating proven processes and best practices into Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and continually updating them as new proven approaches are identified. These SOPs identify the step-by-step measures to be followed by NBAF staff in operating the facility and conducting research.
Finally, having a facility that ensures the safety of workers and the public is a third element in building NBAF’s safety culture. NBAF’s building has many safety system redundancies, which also incorporates design criteria used by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for withstanding a tornado. This will allow U.S. scientists to safely study zoonotic diseases, those diseases that can transfer from animals to humans, in large livestock at the highest level of biosafety, BSL-4 — critical research that cannot be done anywhere else in the nation currently. In fact, only four other facilities in the world can conduct BSL-4 research on large livestock.
[The British department trying to reset workers’ attitudes toward health and safety] [cen.acs.org/safety/Br…)
Bring up health and safety in many workplaces, and you get rolled eyes paired with comments about masses of red tape and wasted time. But the COVID-19 pandemic has refocused minds, especially as universities and industry laboratories reopen after shutdowns meant to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, says Ed Corbett, head of human and organizational performance at the British Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Science Division.Employers worldwide have been charged with making their work environments as safe from the virus as possible. In Great Britain, part of the HSE’s role is to support such efforts with advice and guidelines while also conducting spot checks to make sure workplaces are compliant with COVID-19-related rules.
The HSE isn’t just a regulatory body, however. It conducts its own research and works with collaborators from industry and academia across a wide range of topics, all under the umbrella of health and safety research. This somewhat unique twinning of responsibilities—collaborator and regulator—is one of the organization’s strengths, according to Neil Bourne, a professor in the department of mechanical, aerospace, and civil engineering at the University of Manchester who codirects a research institute created by the university and HSE. “The regulatory and science divisions work together in a way that coordinates and enhances them both,” he says. “HSE works with the industry rather than being a prescriptive and distant entity.”
The HSE employs more than 850 scientists and engineers. They work across several key areas of interest for the agency: data analysis, engineering, economics, health, human factors, major hazards, risk, and social and psychological sciences.
https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/20399-my-story-victor-lawe
My journey into safety began in 1990 with the U.S. Army, as my unit was ramping up to deploy to Saudi Arabia in support of Operation Desert Shield. My unit’s first sergeant asked for volunteers to be trained as combat lifesavers. Before I raised my hand, I asked what that was. Combat lifesavers are first aid responders who are trained beyond basic first aid to start and maintain IVs, perform CPR, and use various field-expedient methods on soldiers under combat conditions. I received the training and maintained that certification throughout the rest of my career in the Army. After I was commissioned as an officer, I inherited the additional duties of battalion range safety officer and unit safety officer.
Since my first civilian job, I have held numerous leadership positions in production management. I naturally gravitated toward safety committees, making safety improvements, safety audits and the like. I was drawn to manufacturing.
At my last manufacturing facility, I was “voluntold” by my plant manager in 2018 that he wanted me to become the new environmental, health and safety manager for the next 90 days. If it worked out, the job was mine. Previously, our human resources manager was wearing two hats: HR and safety. As such, our plant fell behind in getting key safety objectives completed. In 32 days, I melted down her stack of past due objectives to zero.
I then left the private sector to become the safety officer for the City of Rocky Mount, NC. My challenge here is to remember that it’s not a homogenous operation like manufacturing. We have 13 departments, 42 divisions, 1,277 employees and one of me. Some things I handle personally, and others I outsource to consultants and service providers. I had to change my tactics from being the hands-on EHS manager to a safety consultant. I made it my mission to visit each of the different facilities to conduct safety inspections to provide me with a baseline of where our city’s safety programs stood. These inspections provided a two-way training environment. I received informal training on what each division does daily. I observed the indigenous hazards of their jobs and how they deal with them. The divisions received informal training on the hazards or unsafe conditions in their workplace. Being a visible force for good has installed newfound respect from the employees to the directors for the position I now command.
Celebrate REALTOR Safety Year-Round with a Customized Safety Culture Program www.prnewswire.com/news-rele…
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Oct. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ – The Beverly Carter Foundation (BCF) is proud to introduce a three-part training series to assist leadership throughout the real estate industry in implementing sustainable safety strategies for their companies, associations, and employees year-round in order to prevent lone-worker tragedies and long-term harm. The new normal of COVID-19 restrictions, limited showings, increase of virtual communication, and one-on-one meetings are presenting new challenges. In order to support this safety initiative, BCF’s first training, Leadership: Creating a Safety Culture Year-Round, will be held as a webinar Tuesday, October 27, 2020.
“Lone-worker safety starts at the top. By providing education to the decision makers in the industry, we are able to prevent not only tragedy, but inspire a culture of community in this bizarre time,” says Carl Carter Jr. “Beverly Carter Foundation was established in the wake of a horrific tragedy. My greatest pride is knowing together we can help others, perhaps even save a life.”
[https://safetyofwork.com/episodes/ep-50-what-is-the-relationship-between-safety-work-and-the-safety-of-work] (Ep. 50 What is the relationship between safety work and the safety of work
Topics:
The struggle to articulate what it means when we say a safety practice “works”. How we titled our paper. Putting together our own peer review. Risk assessment. The goal in writing their paper. Categorizing safety work. Why certain safety rules and requirements exist. Casting a critical eye on your own organization. Practical takeaways.
Quotes:
“…I could see that people put far more attention in real life on doing assessment and assurance activities, than they spend on insurance activities.”
“Social safety is very much conceptual work. It’s aimed at making safety be a value in the organization and letting the organization believe that it is a champion of safety.”
“We’re fairly sure that lots of the stuff we do in the name of safety…has some impact on the safety of work, but we don’t know which bits…”
Fleets Target Driver Retention, Safety Culture
Improving driver engagement and overall safety were on the minds of industry leaders during American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition on Oct. 20.
The first education session of the virtual event, “Employing Effective Driver Engagement Strategies to Improve Safety & Driver Retention,” dealt with learning how high driver turnover has impacted the industry, how to combat it and how fleets can build a strong safety culture.
The panel discussion was led by Idelic Inc. founder and CEO Hayden Cardiff and featured Ronnie Holland, director of safety for TCW Inc. and Gregg Troian, president of PGT Trucking Inc.
2020 Management Conference & Exhibition logo
Full coverage | Photo gallery
Cardiff led off by noting the staggering turnover rate of 84% and 95% at medium- and large-size fleets, respectively.
These are some of the numbers we hear year-in, year-out,” he said. “The numbers don’t change.”
The Navy and Marine Corps are proud to have gone a full year without a fatal aircraft crash
The Navy and Marine Corps are pleased to announce that, for the first time in nearly a century of United States naval aviation, the services have collectively managed to not lose any pilots in the last year.
Navy and Marine Corps aviators closed out fiscal year 2020 without a single fatality resulting from aviation mishaps, the service announced on Monday.
“After 98 years of recorded aviation history, this unprecedented milestone serves as testimony to the Naval Aviation Enterprise’s tireless commitment toward fostering a safety culture of excellence,” Naval Safety Center chief Rear Adm. F.R. “Lucky” Luchtman said in a statement.
While the reduction in mishaps accompanied a 10 percent reduction in flying hours due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Navy noted that both services continued to perform “approximately” 90 percent of their missions with the same standard flight risks.
“It’s a remarkable achievement that’s really the result of years of training, proficiency and adopting a good safety culture,” said Capt. Scott Kramarik, NAVSAFECEN director of aviation safety programs, said in a statement. “Without that, there’s no way we could’ve gotten here.”
Investigating Chemical Safety Awareness and Practices in Nigerian Schools
Chemical safety, a practice of protecting humans and the environment in which they work and live from the deleterious effects of chemical substances, was investigated in this study in Nigerian secondary schools. Using a mixed-method survey, we investigated the awareness level and implementation of the best practices of chemical safety by 1246 senior secondary school chemistry students. Students in rural schools were found to have a lower level of awareness of chemical safety compared to the students in urban schools. Statistically significant differences were found in all except one of the awareness measures—washing hands before practicals and after leaving the chemistry lab. Urban students were more in breach of chemical safety practices than students in rural schools. Most of the observed differences were statistically significant (p < 0.001). Interview (qualitative) data from 20 students show four emerging themes to explain the findings, including a low level of chemistry laboratory resourcing, poor chemical safety training of the teachers, inadequacies in safety tools, charts, and kits, and weak enforcement of safety regulations. Based on the data from the study, recommendations were made for bolstering the awareness level of students in chemical safety and their chemical safety practices. These include the incorporation of chemical safety in the core curriculum, requiring quality assurance entities to enforce resourcing of basic safety equipment to schools, government-directed workshops on the need for chemical safety, and requiring teachers to provide chemical hazards information to students.
From Crisis to Culture: Moving from COVID Crisis Response to Implementing a “COVID-19 Culture”
The threat of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) took center stage in the world’s theater, seemingly overnight. Hospitals, schools, airlines, and industries of all types scrambled to react to the rapidly changing dynamics of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Federal, state, and local agencies issued rapid-fire guidance as this virus evolved from an epidemic to a global pandemic.
Soon after, some agencies identified the need to revise and reissue certain recommendations, as more information was obtained through epidemiological data and scientific research and modeling. Add in presidential executive orders, state shelter-in-place orders, and even some local ordinances, and the best one could do was to react and respond to this ever-changing crisis.
Today, we see that COVID-19 isn’t a blip on the radar screen. We are many months away from proven treatments and possibly years away from an approved and widely adopted, effective vaccine. As such, we enter the stage where we move from reaction to proactive planning to mitigate and manage risk in the workplace, communities, schools, public spaces and events, and beyond.
Enter the era of the “new normal.”
The “New Normal” What does the COVID-19 “new normal” look like? It is still challenging to define, much less predict. Applicable guidance and the realities of the serious adverse health consequences of this virus reveal a specific need for the identification and implementation of COVID-19 control strategies and associated monitoring, verification, corrective actions, training, and documentation. The new normal also prompts the need to enhance a “COVID-19 culture,” akin to the foundation laid by food safety culture principles.
Ep.49 What exactly is a peer reviewed journal paper?
EPISODE SUMMARY On this episode of the Safety of Work podcast, we discuss peer reviewed journal papers. We dig into what they are and how they function. Whether you are using them for research purposes or setting out to write your own peer-reviewed paper, this conversation should prove useful.
EPISODE NOTES This topic was a request from one of our listeners. Join us as we dig into this frequently asked question and let you know all about academic journals and what you can take away from findings therein.
Topics:
Explaining academic journals. The ease of accessing journals in the Internet age. What makes a reputable journal. The peer-review process. Why some peer-reviews take longer than others. Qualitative vs. quantitative research. Why submission numbers are going up. Journal shopping and its risks. Practical takeaways.
Quotes:
“I still sort of think fondly…of doing my PhD and…you could look up the catalogues online. So, you could sit at your desk and find a reference to the paper, but then you’d need to wander the shelves and find the right volume and pull it down and take it to the photocopy machine.”
“Sometimes if a paper hasn’t advanced satisfactorily between reviews, then the editor will just make a call…”
“You know that you’re going to get peer reviewers that think that research is quantitative.”
Improving skills base is ‘the biggest challenge we face’
Philippe Kavafyan’s briefing to industry leaders and specialists, and key EU policymakers at the launch of the WindEurope report highlighted wind power’s requirements for engineers, technicians and support staff.
“It is the biggest challenge we face,” he said. “My job didn’t exist when I graduated. It was some time ago, but even a few years ago, no one would have expected such an exponential growth of our sector.
“Not just wind, but the rest of our infrastructure initiatives that we need for this energy transition in Europe.”
Increased demand will create future jobs with roles and skills that we cannot currently define, he said.
“We need to make sure the message is conveyed at every level of the educational system. We need to educate children to picture the world of tomorrow, to make sure that [when we are thinking about] apprenticeships we do not forget there are so many technical jobs that are being created in our sector,” he said.
“Of course, we need to continue to support innovation all the way up to advanced research, to continue the effort to attract and direct all the talent. We don’t need one specific set of skills, we have a broad range of situations, from biodiversity, all the way to infrastructure, logistics, technical but also service activities are driving a very wide range of skills,” he said.
“We talk about an exponential demand for skills and talent. Practically speaking, in a college in the northeast of Scotland, we are in a position where we can take young people and put them in a one-year rotation.
“So they can hands-on, and get really accustomed to what it is to not only service a wind turbine, but also what it is like for service technicians going offshore, along with the logistics and safety culture that it comes with it. We need to focus on the massive and wide demand for talent that we need to attract into the new jobs of the energy transition.”
Pilot and ATC Associations Call for Release of Russian Air Traffic Controllers
Both organizations called for the immediate release of the three controllers. The Global Air Traffic Control Alliance said, “The decision to impose imprisonment terms of between 5 and 6 years will do nothing to help aviation safety as it is without the principles of a just culture which is so key to ensuring the aviation community can learn from past incidents and accidents to prevent future ones.” Additionally, the GATCA said, “The three controllers from Moscow-Vnukovo have been sentenced for failing to prevent the accident at their airport even though the tools available to them at the time were not adequate for the task they needed to do. Instead they have been made scapegoats for the whole accident whilst the true reasons for the tragedy have been ignored. By doing so the Russian Federation has shown contempt for the safety culture principles set out by annexes 13 (aircraft accident and incident investigation) and 19 (safety management) to the Convention on International Civil Aviation.”