DEAS/Physics Safety Committee
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
Noon-1:00PM
Lenny Solomon welcomed everyone back from the summer break. Safety Committee reps and members introduced themselves for the benefit of anyone who was new to the Committee.
Lenny distributed a handout called "Safety Committee Documentation Package 2001/2002" containing safety-related background and contact information. He gave a brief description of the history and duties of the committee. The DEAS/Physics Safety Committee meets on the second Wednesday of each month from October through June, and the appointed Safety representatives are expected to attend these meetings. Lenny encouraged everyone to visit the Committee's web site at http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu. All safety reps should take the time to read the online Safety Manual and Chemical Hygiene Plan on the web site, as well as pages dealing with safety training, evacuation plans, and other emergency related items.
(a) Lab Inspections - Safety reps inspect labs yearly. At the November meeting, Lenny will announce the inspection teams consisting of 3 to 5 safety reps. During January and February, the teams will inspect their pre-assigned labs and present their results to the Committee. The inspections will focus on equipment, work space, chemical storage, safety violations, and unsafe lab practices (such as evidence of food or drink in lab areas), etc. The local safety rep for each lab will need to address any issues discovered during the inspections and make a follow-up report to the Committee. Building issues will be resolved by Ed Jackson (DEAS) and Stuart McNeil (Physics).
(b) Safety Training
- Safety Seminar Series - Every year from late winter to early spring, the Committee presents a series of live training lectures on a variety of safety issues. These seminars are extremely important for new lab workers or people who need refresher training. A new schedule of the 2001/2002 series will be posted on the web site in the near future.
- Lab Safety and Hazardous Waste Safety Training - All DEAS/Physics staff and students who work in experimental lab settings must be trained in hazardous waste safety. People take an initial one-hour classroom training session by EH&S and each year thereafter must complete an online retraining test at the EH&S web site.
- Training Database - A database is maintained on the Committee's web site to keep an up-to-date record of the training needs of DEAS and Physics personnel and students. To keep the information as accurate as possible, Lenny encouraged all of the safety reps to log on to the online database and look for records pertaining to their specific group. They should notify Lenny Solomon or Rob Stanhope, if any new group members are not in the database, or if anyone in your group needs a particular kind of safety training.
- The Safety Training is located at http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/services/dbintro.html.
- Public access outside of the DEAS/Physics Safety Committee and its representatives is not permitted, since the information is considered confidential.
- Because access is restricted, anyone using the database must first create a user's account (with username and password). This is a simple process which is done online.
- An online Help/Guide explains how to sort and filter the database. These sorting and filtering features make the Safety Training database particularly useful to find out who has or has not been trained in a specific lab or group. The Guide provides a key to the abbreviations used in the database.
(c) Safety Equipment Testing - Safety showers, hoods, fire extinguishers, etc. are tested annually.
(d) Multimedia Laser Safety Training - We have finished editing a videotaped safety seminar on Laser Safety by Eric Mazur. We are currently working with a programmer in DEAS to create a web-based testing module to accompany the video. This should be completed within a few months.
(e) Fire Drills - The Safety Committee tries to provide fire drills at least once per year.
(f) Ph.D. Hit Squad - Graduating doctoral students must be accountable for the chemicals they ordered during their work at Harvard. A list of these chemicals is maintained by the Safety Committee. All chemicals should be labeled with the student's name, date of purchase, and chemical name. At the suggestion of some Safety Committee reps, Lenny will look into using the same system to monitor the departure of post-docs as well.
(g) Hazardous Waste Safety - In accordance with EPA regulations, anyone who works with chemicals must be trained by attending a live lecture on laboratory and hazardous waste safety. Henry Littleboy provides these training lectures on the 2nd Wednesday of each month. See the schedule for time and location at the following web page: http://www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/onl_tra_sch_ehs.shtml. All new staff and grad students must attend one of these lectures. Retraining is needed every year; this is accomplished by reading a short online retraining course and answering a few questions on the web site. Hazardous waste retraining can be found at: http://www.uos.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/ehs/page_1.pl.
(h) Training Videos and Safety Books - short training videos are shown at the beginning of each Safety Committee meeting. A selection of 20-30 training videos are available for private and group viewing. A collection of reference books on safety is available as well. The list of available video titles and books is on the web site. They can be borrowed by contacting Lenny Solomon at 5-4215.
(i) Waste Disposal - Lenny reviews periodic inspection reports of our satellite accumulation areas. When there are violations of safety procedure, he will contact the assigned SAA monitors and determine what the problem is.
Lenny brought our attention to the issue of evacuation procedures. Although we have procedures in place in case of fire or other emergencies, some people have had a tendency not to follow them, perhaps because of the high frequency of false alarms. Lenny proposed that we all have a predetermined assembly location where people from each group/lab would meet outside during an evacuation. The assembly spot would have to be at least 100 feet from the building. He handed out "Evacuation Plan Procedure" forms to everyone at the meeting. Safety reps must decide upon an appropriate evacuation meeting point for their groups/labs, inform all their group members, fill out the form and mail it back to Lenny.
EH&S conducted the annual summer lab inspections. Lenny distributed the results to the committee members at the meeting. Safety Reps should address any issues raised in the inspections. He will not require a follow-up report at the next meeting; however, everyone should expect that any issues observed during the summer inspections will be re-inspected in January-March.
Some important issues:
- HF antidotes - the inspections noted that many HF antidotes were out-of-date. These old antidotes need to be replaced.
- Perchloric acid was found in two labs. This will be disposed of.
- Signs on doors listing contact information need to be replaced every September. Safety reps must check these signs to make sure they are up-to-date with correct home phone numbers and office numbers. The fire department gets very upset when contact info is not correct. You can find the forms and print them out at: http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/emerform.html
Howard Herman-Haase reported that EH&S has been working on procedures for any bio-terrorist threats. Henry Littleboy announced that CCB's new director is Tony Shaw. Henry has been meeting with each group to see if they need any special equipment in spill kits. He is also trying to get retinal scans for people who are working with lasers.
Rob Stanhope (Safety Coordinator) told the Committee that he will provide monthly reports on the training and retraining of personnel in hazardous waste safety. He will provide safety reps with a list of people who are past due for training, so that they can personally remind them to complete the retraining.
Lenny mentioned that the September storage assessment report from EH&S showed a 16% error rate; however, only 4 labs had problems.
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