Operator Safety - Wastewater Operators - page 2

• Liberal workers' compensation laws

• Absence of safety laws

• Absence of safe work practices and safety programs

Experience has shown that a lack of well-managed safety programs
and safe work practices is the major reason why the wastewater treat-
ment industry ranked near the top of the National Safety Council's
2005-2006 list of worst industries with regard to worker safety.

To further address the question of why the on-the-job injury rate
is so high for wastewater workers, it is necessary to emphasize that
workers involved with wastewater work have a high incidence of injury
because of the diversity of duties required of them. The average waste-
water worker must be a Jack or Jill of all trades. For example, operating
the plant involves taking samples; operating, monitoring, and determin-
ing settings for chemical feed systems and high-pressure pumps; per-
forming laboratory tests; and then recording the results in the plant
daily operating log—all routine functions performed by most wastewater
operators.

Then there are the nonroutine functions that cause additional
problems; for example, the typical wastewater operator must not only
perform the functions stated above but also make emergency repairs
to systems (e.g., welding a broken machine part to keep the equipment
online), perform material handling operations, make chemical additions
to process flow, respond to hazardous materials emergencies, perform
site landscaping duties, and carry out several other functions that are
not usually part of the operator's job classification but are also required
to maintain satisfactory plant operation and site appearance. Remember
that the plant operator's job is to keep the plant running—keeping the
plant running at 3:00 a.m. may require operators to perform mechanical
tasks that they are not trained to do.

The wastewater operator is expected to be a diverse, multitalented,
extremely capable individual who can do whatever is required to main-
tain smooth plant operation, which means that an assortment of safety
considerations come into play during the operator's normal plant shift.
For this reason, a wide variety of safety programs and safe work prac-
tices are required to address these diverse job functions and their asso-
ciated hazards.

1.1.1 Plant safety Person

To be successful, the primary lesson the wastewater treatment
facility “safety person” must learn is to be an advocate for safe work
conditions in the facility, not just a regulator of safe work conditions.
Second, when an uninitiated person is thrown into the position of
“safety person,” he or she must quickly come to grips with the fact
that on-the-job injuries are very real and can be frequent occurrences.
On the other hand, it can take a lot longer time for the rookie “safety