DEAS/Physics Safety Committee

Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, November 10, 1999
Noon-1:00PM

1. Video - "Practicing Safe Science" (29 minutes)

Lenny Solomon opened the meeting with the video "Practicing Safe Science." After the video, he made additional remarks on the following safety concerns:

• He reminded everyone that wearing the correct type of gloves is essential when working in a lab; there is a safety glove reference on the Safety Committee web site.
• Electrical safety guidelines can be found in the Safety Manual on the web site.

2. Safety Subcommittee Assignments

Lenny presented the new subcommittee assignments for 1999-2000. The list of subcommittees and their members can be found on the Safety Committee web site at: http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/textonly/subcom1999-2000.html. Lenny stressed the importance and role of the Lab Inspection Teams:

• The Chairs will coordinate with their team members and schedule a date/time in January or February for their teams to inspect the assigned labs. The inspections should take no more than one day.
• The Chairs will summarize the inspection results and present them to the Safety Committee in February, March or April.

3. EH&S Report - Pete Bochnak

EH&S received the inspection report from the EPA in late October. Overall the report was good.

4. Hazardous Waste Training Report

A list of people needing retraining was handed out to the Committee. Committee members were asked to remind the people on the list to take the online retraining course

5. Old Business

(a) Fire procedure - Lenny discussed the appropriate way to safety reps should prepare for fires.

1. Safety reps must know who is in their group. They should keep a list of names handy.
2. During fire alarm, make sure your entire lab is evacuated.
3. Evacuated people must be at least 150 feet away from the lab outside.
4. Have a designated meeting place.
5. If someone is still inside, you must report this to the Fire Dept. immediately.
6. If there are any disabled people working in labs, know who they are and where they work. Let Lenny Solomon know as well.
7. Try to close all valves on vacuum pumps. Designate beforehand which experiments should be shut down during an emergency.
8. Check the floor plans on the Safety Committee web site to familiarize yourself with exits.

(b) SCBA (Self-contained Breathing Apparatus) - The SCBAs for the Paul Group will be updated soon.

6. New Business -

(a) Refrigerators and Y2K - Everyone should have back-up power supplies for lab refrigerators in case there is a Y2K associated power loss.

(b) Andrea Santoro - She reported that her group has unfixed broken fume hoods. This will be addressed.

Next Meeting: Wednesday, December 8, 1999, 12:00 noon, Maxwell/Dworkin 119