DEAS/Physics Safety Committee
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
Noon-1:00PM
Lenny Solomon opened the meeting by asking everyone to introduce themselves to the committee. There were several new safety officers present.
Lenny 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 officers 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. New members can read some of last year's meeting minutes to get an idea of what we do from month to month.
The Safety Committee tries to be pro-active in identifying safety issues. In addition to its monthly meetings, the Committee performs the following functions:
(a) Lab Inspections - One of the most important functions of this committee is the self-inspection of our labs. Safety officers inspect labs yearly. At the November meeting, Lenny will announce the inspection teams consisting of 3 to 5 safety officers each. 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 officer 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 2003/2004 series will be posted on the web site in the next few months.
- Lab Safety and Hazardous Waste Safety Training - In accordance with EPA regulations, anyone who works with chemicals must be trained by attending a live lecture on laboratory and hazardous waste safety. Cathy Thomas provides these training lectures on the 2nd Wednseday of each month. See the schedule for time and location at the following web page:
http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/services/seminars.html#hazardouswaste.
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.(c) 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. Lenny asked all the safety officers to create a username and log on to the online database. They should look for records pertaining to their specific group and notify Lenny Solomon or Rob Stanhope, if any new group members are not in the database, or if anyone in their group needs a particular kind of safety training. This is the only way we can keep the database up-to-date.
The Safety Training is located at http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/services/dbintro.html.
Public access outside of the DEAS/Physics Safety Committee 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.
(d) Safety Equipment Testing - Safety showers, hoods, fire extinguishers, etc. are tested annually.
(e) Fire Drills - The Safety Committee tries to provide fire drills at least once per year. It was mentioned that we need new outside meeting areas for the McKay and DEAS buildings
(f) Ph.D. Hit Squad - Graduating doctoral students and departing post-docs 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.
(g) Hazardous Waste Disposal - Certain safety officers are assigned the task of inspecting their Satellite Accumulation Areas (SAAs). These SAA Monitors need to inspect their SAAs weekly to make sure there are no violations, specifically looking for problems with the hazardous waste labels and containers. Rob will send out periodic inspection reminders. SAA Monitors should view this EH&S web page for help with the hazardous waste labels:
http://www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/env_hw_label_tool.shtml.
a) Web site updates
- Cryogens - An accident involving liquid helium prompted Lenny to provide information on cryogens on our website. You can view the new information at this web page: http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/services/cryo_general.html.
- Shipping Haz Mats - Lenny added a new section to the web site on safe practices for shipping hazardous materials:
http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/shipping.html.- Laser Training - Bill Irwin (EH&S) offers in-class laser safety training. You can view the schedule here:
http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/services/seminars.html#laser. We have been developing an online laser safety training module consisting of three short streaming videos and brief quizzes. Due to problems with the streaming video not streaming (!), we have had to delay going "live" with this training. We are trying to solve the problem and hope to have an "alpha" version for your testing pleasure soon.b) CIMS Clean Room - Problems with the CIMS Clean Room are being addressed.
Mike Labosky reported the following:
- There was an incident involving a leaking CO2 cylinder in the Bio Labs hallway. The cylinder which was old and probably damaged was releasing pressure which was a safety hazard. Fortunately no one was injured; however, this can serve as a reminder that old cylinders should be returned to the vendors and replaced.
- Lab signage - It is very important to have up-to-date emergency information posted on lab doors.
- There are boxes located at the entrance to buildings which will contain keys and floorplans for the use of the Fire Department in case of emergencies. People should make sure copies of their keys are placed there.
- EH&S will be offering Clean Room training.
Rob Stanhope (Safety Coordinator) told the Committee that he will provide monthly reports on the training and retraining of personnel in hazardous waste safety.
| Send comments or suggestions to solomon@huarp.harvard.edu | Last Updated: Mon Nov 10 17:50:57 2003 |
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