West Virginia Passes a Mine-Safety Bill
January 24th, 2006 by Laura Moncur in NewsSomewhere between these two quotes, lies the truth. Because of the recent tragedies, West Virginia has passed a mine safety bill.
I live somewhere in the middle of the two quotations above. I worked in a research lab for a couple of years as a Safety Officer. We had many rules in the laboratory to protect the workers, but it was a constant struggle to get the employees to follow the rules. We were working with hazardous and unknown substances. We were testing them to create the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) that would tell you what sort of protective gear you needed to wear to keep yourself safe. Since we didn’t know how toxic these substances were, we had to wear full gear all the time. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get the lab workers to follow the rules.
Was it overkill? Sometimes. Was it enough? Sometimes not… There were times when we were working with chemicals so toxic that they killed the guinea pigs when just applied to the skin. I wonder if the technicians that worked with that chemical that day were wearing their full protective gear. I KNOW they were after that day.
Somewhere between being able to get the job done and perfect safety, there is a golden spot. I hope West Virginia has found that golden ratio because if their rules are too strict, they won’t be followed unless MSHA is visiting. If they’re not strict enough, there will be more deaths. It’s a very difficult balancing act and I wish them the best of luck.