Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
Joe and Jen Allen of Allen Safety LLC take their combined 40+ years of worker safety, OSHA, EPA, production, sanitation, and engineering experience in Manufacturing Plants including Harvest Plants/Packers, Case Readies and Further Processing Plants, Food Production Plants, Feed Mills, Grain Elevators, Bakeries, Farms, Feed Lots, and Petro-Chemical and bring you their top methods for identifying risk, preventing injuries, conquering the workload, auditing, managing emergencies and catastrophic events, and working through OSHA citations. They're breaking down real safety opportunities, safety citations, and emergency situations from real locations, and discussing realistic solutions that can actually be implement based on their personal experiences spending 40+ weeks in the field every year since 2001. Joe and Jen are using all of that experience to provide a fresh outlook on worker safety by providing honest, (no sponsors here!) and straight forward, easy to understand safety coaching with actionable guidance to move your safety program forward in a way that provides tangible results.
Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
#48: Should I Have A HAZMAT Team? Is It Good For Business?
In this insightful YouTube episode, the Joe and Jen delve into the critical aspects of why establishing a hazmat team is not only essential for safety but also a sound business strategy. The discussion unfolds across four key reasons, providing a comprehensive exploration of each:
Emergency Response and Planning: The episode starts by stressing the significance of emergency response and planning in the business landscape. The speaker challenges the common notion that accidents and leaks can be predicted. Instead, they advocate for a proactive approach, highlighting the need for a robust Process Safety Management (PSM) program. The importance of training with external agencies is underscored, drawing on 23 years of experience in dealing with various plants and leak scenarios. The speaker encourages businesses to consider emergency response as part of the PSM, emphasizing the inevitability of unforeseen incidents such as new employees or accidents with forklifts.
Levels of Teams: Moving on, the discussion expands to address the misconception surrounding hazmat teams. Drawing on a diverse background, including military and hazmat team experience, the speaker emphasizes the need to understand the different levels of hazmat response. They caution against tunnel vision and urge businesses to look at the broader picture. The speaker provides insights into how hazmat responses from fire departments differ from fixed facility hazmat events, emphasizing the need to comprehend the specific system that is leaking.
Time of Restarting: The episode takes a pragmatic turn as it explores the critical factor of time in hazmat responses. The speaker asserts that the primary goal of hazmat response is to mitigate incidents swiftly, minimizing downtime, product loss, and potential environmental impacts. The discussion sheds light on the negative consequences of delays in response time, underlining the financial and operational repercussions for businesses. The speaker advocates for a goal-oriented approach, aiming to end hazmat incidents before they escalate.
Training: Concluding with a crucial aspect, the episode emphasizes the pivotal role of training in hazmat response. The speaker challenges the perception that hazmat situations are inherently daunting and advocates for reframing how businesses view hazmat incidents. They stress the need for tailored training, debunking the idea that extensive teams and expensive gear are prerequisites. Instead, the focus is on training a select group of individuals to handle specific tasks effectively. The episode underscores the importance of understanding the difference between live emergency response and post-emergency cleanup, offering practical insights into skill set differentiation.
SEO Keywords: hazmat team establishment, proactive emergency planning, Process Safety Management, diverse hazmat response levels, swift hazmat response, hazmat training, financial impact of hazmat incidents, tailored hazmat response training, live emergency response, post-emergency cleanup.
Today is top four reasons. Having a Hazmat team can benefit and save you money in your business.
Speaker 2:It's actually good business.
Speaker 1:It's good business. All right, let's go. ["hazmat Team"].
Speaker 2:Here we go. So number one we got today top four things good business, hazmat team. You know what Everyone tells me? We don't have a team, we don't have a league. Come on, you have a league. You're gonna have weather or forklifts or some kind of contractor part. You have random stuff happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we hear all the time. We have a really, really strong PSM program.
Speaker 3:But you should.
Speaker 1:We keep it in the pipes? Absolutely, but I would also invite you to consider emergency response, and planning is part of the 14 elements of PSM. For a reason. They know what other happens New employees happen, contractors that have new employees happen, we have forklifts that have accidents, things happen. So we don't plan that on a Tuesday at 3 PM. We're gonna have a league, obviously, but we understand we need to be prepared. It's just an insurance policy.
Speaker 2:For 23 years we trained with outside agencies on how to fight leaks of different plants, to make it right. And now, like this year, now everyone's talking about we have to get our fire departments more involved. We should have cause. You're gonna have stuff. That's all they're saying. They're saying that things happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's provide folks the training if they're already doing the response. So I think, the biggest thing is is we hear? Well, we don't respond to leaks.
Speaker 2:What do you, what's your? But we have an SOP, and SOP has what section in it?
Speaker 1:Well, it has emergency. But I would also invite you to consider how do you define nuisance? Leak, right, so we have something that's leaking it should be parts million now. It shouldn't be leaking.
Speaker 2:That's not normal operations, because normal operations I got a room by myself trying to turn the valve off.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm getting that part. You got to define what is actually emergency or not, and that's where the things. People don't want to define it, but it's very easy to find.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got equipment in normal operating condition. Shouldn't be leaking.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:There you go.
Speaker 2:So back to you even if you say we're not gonna have a team, we're gonna have a fire department, because I have plants that happen, you know then you still got to procedures on what you want the fire departments to do, because there's still more to it than just saying, well, we'll just hope, yeah, Okay. So that's number one there.
Speaker 1:Number two All right, first hang on before you get into that. This is our opinion.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:It's rooted in our 480 some odd leak responses and involvements that we have dealt with as a company. Joe and I so either on the phone, live in person after the event has happened and investigation. So take it for however you want, but always do a thorough risk assessment of your situation. But this is just our opinion.
Speaker 2:All right. The second one is you got levels of teams. So let's start with there Military background, and then I was a medic and then I was on a hazmat team and then I did bio weapons and then I have a degree from Oklahoma State, by the way Fire Protection, safety at Greater School out there Anyway, and they lead the industry in this stuff. Then I have certifications and I did all of that went to a food plant and I'd never managed or been involved with a chemically like this, even though I had. My dad was even a career fireman. I was in the fire, explored, I had all this fire background. That's what this picture is. Back here is always you. That's always you, by the way, that's so. So the point of it is I had all of that and so to say, to me, my level, what I thought training was, was level A's or D Connors.
Speaker 2:I thought, my scope was way bigger than what I thought.
Speaker 1:You should have had all the tools you needed to manage those events, but you didn't.
Speaker 2:But I didn't because? Why? Because I didn't understand that the league could go for three days and my level A, my fire response, could only be two hours of it. I didn't understand that world. So, backing up, when you look at levels of your teams and you look at what you're going to do or not, don't get caught up, hasmat. As I make a level A, I see trainers that say that to people and that's not real. You're still under command until the floor's released.
Speaker 1:Well, here's something interesting to consider A lot of Hasmat responses from the fireside unless they have some specific data. I've seen a lot of entries using bunker gear.
Speaker 2:Right, or they'll say automatically.
Speaker 1:Automatically level A. There is an in-between and their in-between is bunker gear.
Speaker 2:And they may be able to do a quick attack that we may not be able to do. So there's different rules and laws. All I want you to know is, when you look at the size of your teams, we're going to have a team, not. Don't get tunnel vision Back up and look at the big picture of everything that's going on.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think something else to kind of consider in that too is that when we talk about well, we've got because I hear the argument a lot of times we don't need to have a team because we've got a paid fire department here or the regional team is based, here, and I think it's important to kind of delve into the fact that Hasmat Fire Department responses and how they are trained to do those responses.
Speaker 1:That is a completely different plan of attack on how they're gonna manage that event than dealing with a fixed facility hazmat event, where how you address that leak is understanding the system that's leaking, so understanding the refrigeration system.
Speaker 2:Because I didn't know all that in the beginning and how it operates.
Speaker 1:There is not a really intensive module that they're going through. That's like a miniature operator one where they're trained on how everything flows through the system and there's so many systems and so many versions.
Speaker 2:I mean we got hundreds of plants here and every plant's different, so you gotta learn those new ones there's this very, very generalized because they have to be able to do everything.
Speaker 1:But that is the negative when you're talking about this next one and it's time of response.
Speaker 2:Number three is time. So here's the way it works. I've got a leak and I've got jobs and I got a community and I also have product, and our view is you shouldn't get hurt, you should not have literally no product loss. You should have the smallest leak ever and you know what. It shouldn't really take that long if you do it right. So that's how we approach all these systems as we approach it by how we're gonna manage overall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, the goal of a hazmat response is to have it end before it can really get going. And if you have to sit and wait for some kind of response team whether it be a contractor, a third party or a fire department regional team or something like that the time is ticking and you're continuing to spill chemical either whether it's refrigerant or whether it's sanitation type chemicals or process chemicals, You're continuing to spill those and not address the problem so it continues to grow for a longer period of time.
Speaker 1:This gonna affect potentially life safety, could potentially affect the environment. Situation is probably gonna affect your downtime and your product loss and the goals to not impact any of those.
Speaker 2:If you're gonna have a leak, that's 50 parts a million and you go deal with it. Normally it could be less than an hour and you're fine, you're up and running again, Absolutely no drama. So what happens is perception. There's different devices, you can stream and look at leaks, but every time people feel through a hazmat they think it's a massive. A lot of these leaks we fought whenever level A. Well, I don't think we kept them small.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's the other thing to note. So back in 2014, we had some regulators come in at that time new client to us and they were told hey, we think you're responding to leaks. And they said what are you talking about? We don't have a hazmat team, we don't respond to leaks. And they said well, you're turning stuff off when it's leaking and it shouldn't be. And they said and there was other stuff yeah.
Speaker 1:So at that time Joe and I were tasked with we need to develop some kind of response that's in the middle. It can't be all or nothing. It's either we do nothing or we have level A. There has to be a middle ground and that's where Joe and I came up with the stage two hazmat response, which is basically a response in APRs, so that you have that and that way you get kind of out of the cost of entry into having a hazmat team and you can bring down some of those other barriers. If we don't have people or we don't have the money or we don't have the gear, it's really scary. We're in a level A.
Speaker 2:So we got a number four now. Now we're into training. So what happens? You don't have to have 50 people and $100,000 with a gear. No, you already got the meat.
Speaker 3:That's too much. You're doing line breaks If you already got mask.
Speaker 2:If you're already doing all this stuff, you've got most of the gear. So now what you do is you train a few people that can manage. So when you're at 50, 80, 100, you're managing it. It's not so crazy. Keep the league small and keep the wrist down for a buddy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the biggest thing is is just you're doing the right thing. We have to kind of reframe how we view hazmat. It should not be scary. If it's scary, it's wrong. I would also look at it from the side of if you start interviewing your employees and kind of asking some open-ended questions and you find that they are turning stuff off, that it's not normal operating conditions, that is leaking, then my question would be what is scarier? Is it scarier to have them be doing these tasks already and not provide the training? And now we're putting them in that really weird situation because, as Joan mentioned earlier, they are reviewing the emergency section of the SOPs and they're saying they're fine, and if we're not providing training to kind of help educate them?
Speaker 1:because this is the pushback I get all the time. We can't, generally speaking, use SOPs in the emergency section and my hazmat response is because they say, well, that's too general, that won't fix the leak that's happening. And so then you say, well, then you need to rewrite your emergency section to outline some of these different leaks. Well, there's too many options.
Speaker 2:We can never do that. It's a system. It's not a leak. It's a system.
Speaker 1:And so the application comes in on how do you navigate through that emergency scenario?
Speaker 2:Now, also in the training, though I've a lot of background in this you got a duck, it's got oil on it. Wipe off duck. That's not what I'm talking about. We're not. We're talking about live 15 minutes evacuation, chemically, fire trucks and which is running different training. There's EPA training, some cleanup training. There's clean disposal.
Speaker 1:And there's the. There's the. It's a live emergency and I have to know how to address that right now. And then there's the. The emergency is over. Now we have to clean up the mess that was made and make sure that it's safe for everybody, clean up the environment and the two don't cross over, because they are two completely different skill sets.
Speaker 2:I don't train on a barrel leak by the time we get to a lot of times it's already leaked out. So I don't train on rail cars, because my teams aren't going to be allowed to do that in their place. So you've also got to have the skills that you say you're going to do is, when you need, tailor that to those subjects.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're training employees on the tasks. We expect them to do. So if the expectation is to go in and turn a valve when we've got a hundred parts per million leak because we've got APRs that go up to IDLH, Then train them. Well then, we want to make sure we're providing some training on how to do that safely and who else should be involved in that process, and that decision making of this is what we need to do and how we arrived there.
Speaker 2:All right, Jen's going to be speaking at IR here in the next few weeks.
Speaker 1:So don't, forget about that, yeah, I am.
Speaker 2:If you want some more, daddy, go to episode number five. It has a lot more stuff before. We did the video stuff.
Speaker 1:We did some others, but it gives a lot of detail, but yeah, you can also go to AlanSafetyCoachingcom. That's going to go ahead and give you all kinds of ideas on how to structure some of this out. So if you have questions on, okay, maybe we do need some training, we've got all kinds of modules on there about how to organize and set this up and then if you're like you know what, we just want to go ahead and move forward with training, AlanSafetycom List out all the in-person stuff we do. If you're interested.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's the reasons why having the team makes good business.
Speaker 1:All right, Hopefully I'll see you at IR.
Speaker 3:come by Orlando in March, come see me.
Speaker 1:Come say hi, hey, everybody.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening to Safe, efficient, profitable a Worker Safety Podcast. If you're looking for more in-depth discussions or step-by-step solutions on all of the different safety and regulatory topics, please visit us at wwwallonsafetycoachingcom for web-based virtual coaching and training, or at wwwallondashsafetycom to book our team for on-site services, training sessions, to order merchandise, to learn more about our team and what services we provide in the field, or just simply to request a topic for us to cover on our next podcast. If you found today's podcast helpful and would like to support our podcast further, please help us by subscribing, liking and sharing this podcast with anyone that could benefit from the information we cover here, as that helps us to continue to put out this free content. Thank you so much for your support. I'll see you soon. You.
