DEAS/Physics Safety Committee
Wednesday, December 8, 1999
Noon-1:00PM
Lenny Solomon opened the meeting with an electrical safety video, after which he commented further on the importance of electrical safety procedures in labs and offices.
Lenny asked the chairs of the six inspection teams to report their scheduled dates of inspection:
The results of the completed inspections will be reported to the Safety Committee in January, February, and March.
(a) EPA Report - we received a report from the EPA about 30 days ago. Harvard has answered all issues.
(b) Hazardous Waste Training notices - The EH&S Hazardous Waste Training database has begun issuing reminder notices automatically to people who need retraining. The notices are sent via email 30 days before the retraining due-date. Designated monitors will also receive a list of the people who need retraining and are encouraged to make sure the individuals complete their retraining.
(c) Y2K issues - EH&S is prepared for any Y2K related events which might occur on or around New Year's Day. Five people will be on-call the week before and after January 1, 2000. Four people will be on-call on New Year's Eve.
Rob Stanhope (Safety Coordinator) presented a list of DEAS and Physics personnel or students who still need training or the refresher course in hazardous waste safety. He asked the committee members to remind the people on the list to take the online training course.
(a) SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) - Lenny met with the Cambridge Fire Dept. and a vendor who sells SCBAs. The old SCBA units were removed from the Paul Group area. New updated units will arrive this week. Once the units have be reinstalled, people will be trained to use them.
(b) New Graduate Student Orientation - Lenny gave two talks yesterday to new Physics students. Some students did not attend the orientation; Lenny asked the Committee to consider what we should do about students who do not participate in safety training talks. Should we let peer pressure tempt people to attend training sessions? Should we prevent these students from working in a lab until they are trained? One person felt that it is more effective to have the PI enforce attendance, but many PIs do not do this. Another person suggested that we should provide alternate times for training or even online training. Lenny reminded the group that very soon we will be developing a laser-safety training video for online access. Someone suggested that it is not wise to depend on the PIs to enforce attendance; instead we could prevent staff or students from placing orders through the Purchasing Office or the Stockroom. We could also prevent access to the Machine Shop.
(c) Safety Training Database - Lenny said that only three committee members have created user accounts for the online training database. He reminded and encouraged everyone to create a user account and to check the database. Each safety rep should search the database for the members of their particular research group. If anyone has left their group or a new person has joined the group, please let Lenny or Rob know, so they can update the database.
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