DEAS/Physics Safety Committee

Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, December 9, 1998
Noon-1:00PM

1. Video - "Lab: Safety Orientation"

2. Inspection Schedules:

The following people will have their inspection schedules prepared for Lenny by the January Safety Committee meeting:

A) McKay - Yuki Sugimura
B) Cruft/Pierce - Simson Alex
C) Jefferson/Lyman - Jennifer Mullin
D) ESL - Steve Shepard
E) The Link - Paul Evans

3. Hazardous Waste Training Report:

Rob reported that only one person had not completed the online retraining course since his due date in June.

4. Web Page Update:

Standard Operating Procedures - Most SOPs have been posted on the web site. Everyone who submitted an SOP should look for it online and proofread it for accuracy. Some SOPs have been edited. They can be found at http://www.deas-safety.harvard.edu/sop/chart.html.

Lenny handed out his "Wall of Shame" list which contains the names of 16 people who have not yet submitted their SOPs. Lenny reminded everyone that it is necessary for us to maintain a record of lab SOPs and that the people on the list should complete their SOPs as soon as possible.

5. Safety Training

Lenny opened a discussion on issues regarding safety training. He said there is no easy solution for training in a large work environment such as ours. While we need to have some kind of training program in action, it is not clear what we are legally required to do. OSHA leaves it up to the organization to institute training plans which are "reasonable"; however, the term "reasonable" does not clearly define the limits of our responsibilities.

Training has two phases:

• Initial Training - intended for new students, employees and/or anyone who has never been trained.
• Reminder/Refresher Training - intended to refresh or update the previous training of experienced staff and students.

Issue: Is it reasonable for us to require that experienced staff (who have already been working in their labs for years) participate in retraining? How do we determine what kind of training experienced people need? Should we focus on "risk assessment" and look only for certain accidents which are likely to be repeated?

The following is a summary of the suggestions and opinions offered by committee members:

1. Periodically check or assess the training needs of each individual working in labs. If we try to make this a requirement, the faculty would have to approve it.
2. Steve Shepard said he wants to know that people coming into his cleanroom are properly trained. He suggests a yearly refresher training.
3. Jennifer Mullin agreed and said that lab personnel should have the authority to prevent people from entering labs if they have had no training.
4. Joe Thywissen - his PI checks the lab areas during weekly meetings. This is convenient because everyone who works in the lab is present and any safety issues can be resolved.
5. Aldo Apponi stressed the importance of faculty involvement. He also mentioned it is difficult for non-supervisor lab staff to enforce safety procedures on coworkers because they have no authority over their peers. Lenny suggested "peer pressure" may be the answer.
6. Peter Pershan suggested that faculty and lab workers could view safety instructional videos and take a follow-up test before they receive clearance to work in a lab. This requirement could be enforced through payroll. Whatever the training program is, it must be done in a way that is easy and convenient not just effective. Automated training would be better. Faculty will be more likely to participate in training, if they were able to do it when they wanted to.
7. Lenny agreed that automated training may be the way to go. Online training would be convenient and easy to track.
8. Joe Thywissen said that all Standard Operating Procedures should list the training that is needed in order to work in that particular lab area.
9. Henry Littleboy said his training program (both class and internet) works very well. Peter Bochnak has been looking into web-based training. Henry said we definitely need ground rules for all new people.
10. Lenny suggested that there should be an annual one-hour in-class training course on general safety (RTK, chemical hygiene plan, and general lab safety), then online training on specific topics should be available. We might have to produce our own one-hour general training video.

6. Report from Environmental Health and Safety

A) Respiratory Protection Program - Henry Littleboy reported that the Respiratory Protection Program had been instituted. People should call Dr. Ken Gold's office for a physical checkup. EH&S will then assign a trainer.

B) Ergonomics Training - This can be found by clicking on "Hot Topics" at the EH&S web site (http://www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/). Everyone should check this out and take the online training.

C) Chris Centrella - Chris reported that the new Hazardous Waste Label will have the tear-off portion removed. In January, he will have available "cheat sheets" and reference books on hazmats (such as acetone, etc.). Lenny reminded everyone that our Safety Committee web site has MSDS sheets online (http://www.uos.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/msds/msds_bl.pl).

7. Old Business

Lenny reported that the mercury samples had finally been removed from Pierce Hall. Clean Harbors did a poor job, since it took them two months to complete the task.

8. New Business - none

Next Meeting: Wednesday, January 13, 1999, 12:00 Noontime, Pierce 100F