What’s more, local municipal workers will also be safer thanks to the state labor-management cooperation.

It’s dangerous out there

“Changes in the tasks performed by some of our sanitary engineers while inspecting water-treatment plants led to renewed concern about just how dangerous this job can be,” said PEF member Ray Rockwell, director of occupational safety and health for state Health Department employees.

Those dangers include a lack of safeguards to prevent someone accidentally turning on the water to the drained filtration beds while an inspector is in it, or from opening drains. The dangers of falling is another worry, as is the presence of chlorine gas.

Approximately 25 of the sanitary engineers — who are all PEF members — are responsible for inspecting the 300 water plants in the state to make sure operations meet state and federal standards for keeping public drinking water safe. It’s a duty they’ve been performing since 1995, and the engineers inspect 20-30 plants each year, so they are still on their first round of inspections.

When the Health Department saw the potential danger for inspectors visiting the plants, it gave them three hours of training in the spring just to make sure they were aware of the potentially deadly gases and other hazards associated with confined spaces, such as plant filtration beds.

In fact, at least two farm workers in New York died in confined-space accidents this summer, when they fell into manure pits.

PEF, SEIU, DOL pitch in to help

“Comments from the engineers at that spring training raised more safety concerns,” Rockwell said, “and in June I talked to Jonathan Rosen, PEF’s director of occupational safety and health about our need to have an industrial hygienist study some of these sites for hazards.

Rosen arranged to use funds from its state Labor Department grant to hire a hygienist who studied conditions at three water filtration plants operated by Albany County.

“Albany County was very receptive and helpful,” Rockwell said.

Meanwhile, Rosen also helped to arrange for three-day training in confined-space safety which the Service Employees International Union conducted for the five state sanitary engineers who are assigned full-time to inspections. PEF and SEIU have provided similar training in previous years for members at other state agencies, such as the Office of General Services and Parks, Recreation and Historical Preservation.

The hygienist’s study identified potential hazards at the water-filtration plants and made seven recommendations for ways to reduce the risks to engineers and others who enter them to work.

Everyone can benefit

“We’re not sure yet exactly how we’re going to implement all of the recommendations,” Rockwell said. “Some of the policies and procedures may have to vary from plant to plant, because there are 300 plants and very few of them are alike.”

Nevertheless, Rockwell said the information from the study is invaluable in helping the engineers understand where the pitfalls may be and how to protect themselves.

“This was really a pretty good collaborative effort among a lot of people,” said Dave Crugnale, PEF co-chair of the Joint Health and Safety Committee who worked on this project. “It went beyond state labor-management collaboration to include the municipalities and their employees will benefit from this too,” said Crugnale who works for the Health Department at the Veterans’ Home at Oxford.

Rockwell agreed. “This is just a great example of labor-management cooperation,” he said.

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