Canadian Occupational Safety

18 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com bucket and hoisting it up to workers at the surface, says Parkman. The City of Charlottetown also offers awareness sessions on slips, trips and falls. "It's a little bit of a refresher to our workers to keep an eye out (because) in this line of work, we get into quite a few of those hazards, more so when you get into a water main break or something of that nature," says Pigott. "As soon as you get water spraying or fl ying all over the place… it becomes very slippery." Drowning is always a concern in spaces that are not fully drained, as is the case with a sewer. It takes little standing water or other liquid to create a drowning hazard. "You can drown in an inch of water," says Winters. "If you hit some- thing and knock yourself out or lose consciousness because of a low oxygen atmosphere and land face down in sewage water, then you've drowned." To avoid an infl ux of water when workers are in the sewer, companies have systems in place that divert the water from one manhole to the next one down the line, says Cowan. This way, the water completely bypasses the workers. Sewer workers face other hazards as well, such as vehicles overhead. Since manholes are generally located right in the middle of the road, workers need to take extra precautions. Util- ity workers need to take traffi c control management training. "It's all about setting up a safe work zone for the workers to be in, whether it's signage coming up to the spot, cones and they need a written traffi c control plan, so it creates that safe area for them," says Cowan. Noise created in a sewer — such as from cutting, grinding or welding — can be harmful because the sound refl ects off the walls. According to the government of Alberta, noise levels from a source inside a sewer can be up to 10 times greater than the same source located outdoors. "(For example) they might have a drill or boring tool down there to do some debris removal. Just imagine being in a small room with lots of echo and creating that kind of noise," says Cowan. Training is very important for workers who go down into sewers, and Cowan recommends a "spring startup" every year to act as a refresher. This training should include air monitoring, atmospheric hazards, entry procedures, rescue procedures, duties of entrants, duties of attendants, as well as hazard assessments and restricted space assessments. At the City of Charlottetown, all new employees go through an orientation process on the organization's policies and procedures. Existing workers are also required to go through this train- ing once per year. "It makes them aware of the various hazards that are in our work environ- ment and how everybody needs to pull together, safety-wise," says Parkman. "Sometimes people do forget things and when we go through this orienta- tion, it just refreshes everybody." All sewer workers at the city must also undergo training around traf- fi c control management, WHMIS, asbestos handling, fi rst aid and CPR, slips, trips and falls and PPE. If there is an incident among City of Charlottetown workers, additional training will follow. "For instance, if someone has a slip or a trip, every action has a reaction so we follow up with a bit of training to try and mitigate any future accidents," says Pigott. Comprehensive confined space entry training is a must for all sewer workers. They need to understand the hazards of the confi ned space, safe work procedures to perform their duties and how to properly use the PPE required for entry (full body har- ness and lifeline). Training is also important for atten- dants at the top of the confi ned space. They have to know how to effectively communicate with the worker down below, says Cowan. Confi ned space rescue training is also essential for those who would be involved if something were to go dramatically wrong, says Cowan. The rescue crew needs training on the spe- cifi c equipment (tripod and winch system), PPE (self-contained breath- ing apparatus) and processes required to perform a rescue. First-aid and CPR training is also crucial for the rescue team. "There's a four to six minute window without oxygen before permanent brain damage. If someone goes down in a confi ned space and we are relying on emergency services to come, they are probably seven to eight minutes before they are on site," says Cowan. "For the safety of the worker, we need to have him on top of that hole before they get there." City of Charlottetown workers com- plete the confi ned space training and rescue at the PEI Firefi ghters Asso- ciation every two years. The city also does its own in-house training every six months to keep people refreshed. "We are in a fi eld where we have to take safety very seriously… so the refresher training just keeps everybody alert and ready to go into action and perform a rescue if that problem ever arises," says Parkman. Over the past few years, safety has become an increased focus at the City of Charlottetown — a refl ection of the industry as a whole, says Pigott. "It's gotten to the point where people are really being heard," he says. "It's better for everybody and a safer work environment." At the city, the workers are a close- knit group both during work hours and in their personal lives. They all work together to identify and address any red fl ags that come up and look out for one another on the job. "Everyone has a part to play in safety and we all work together to make sure we accomplish it," says Pigott. " Inju- ries are all preventable, so why not prevent it?" 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