The title of this opinion piece is probably one of the most popular and truthful safety slogans. Professor Nathaniel Burke uses it at the start of those clever and informative Farmers' Insurance commercials. And it got me thinking about a letter to the editor in this morning's (7/28/14) Columbus Dispatch from an area vice president of Halliburton. Yes, that worldwide organization to which Dick Cheney's name is attached along with billions of dollars of inflated and unbid contracts in Iraq. That should raise a red flag right then and there. But that's a discussion for another time.
I do not claim to be an expert in horizontal fracking. Nor am I a chemist. I can, however, lay claim to being properly credentialed to deliver 10 and 30 hour training for OSHA construction safety with more than 30 years of experience. The aforementioned letter is a response to an explosion and fire at a Monroe County, Ohio fracking well site to which first responders may have been exposed to the effects of a "proprietary product."
The letter cites that first responders had immediate access to material safety data sheets or MSDS, "required to accompany all chemical compounds at all times." What the writer doesn't mention is that when listing the individual components and their percentage of the whole, if it is proprietary or "a company/trade secret," it can be noted in that manner. Other parts of the MSDS address emergency procedures, fire and explosion potentials, first aid procedures and so forth. But these are usually stated in a very general fashion such as "do not fight the fire with water" or "respiratory protection and gloves are required."
Which brings us to what proprietary ingredients the letter writer claims to have been passed along to the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources and the Ohio EPA. To be fair, I have no knowledge of who said what to whom. But hopefully there was some level of disclosure to protect lives and property. Halliburton further claims they "remain committed to providing any technical expertise and support to ensure the matter is thoroughly investigated."
That sounds all well and good. However, be warned that "what you don't know can hurt you." An MSDS can be an incomplete document when it comes to listing all of the components which make up a particular chemical product in a manner that otherwise masks itself as a trade secret.
If you are an emergency responder, take the time to find out what's going on with that new business or industrial site which suddenly springs up in your area of responsibility. Do they have a written safety plan? What is their emergency response plan? Will they willingly provide you with MSDSs on chemical products manufactured, used or stored there? Will your inspection of that information reveal proprietary ingredients which requires further disclosure to protect you and your responding organization?
If you need further proof of the unknown, recall the 30-second commercials put out by the oil and gas trade organization featuring an idyllic setting in which a young lady states "some people were surprised when we allowed fracking on our farm." She goes on to say that "we checked the facts and checked with experts and guess what, it's safe." Statements like that tend to infuriate me for many reasons, not the least of which if taken at face value, puts innocent lives and property in danger. I firmly believe, in reality, there is too much that is unknown about the short and long-term effects of horizontal fracking.
For my heroes, those first responders out there, that's why I've vented a bit here to make sure that you find out what you can about what's out on that industrial site in case you must respond to save the lives of workers who may find themselves in a life-threatening situation.
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