San Bruno pipeline called 'tip of the iceberg'

San Francisco Chronicle, Jaxon Van Derbeken, Eric Nalder, Chronicle Staff Writers © 2011 Sunday, January 30, 2011

San Bruno blast a 'wake-up call' thousands of miles of untested natural gas pipelines across the u.s. are at a great risk of failure than regulators maintian, experts say. 

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/29/MNN41HDP4A.DTL#ixzz1CckxYZoW

Lessons of the Challenger Disaster

Keeping quiet about a problem can lead to disastrous consequences. Study these lessons. Break the silence.

As many safety heroes know, it often takes enormous persistence and courage to take leadership for safety...and overcome indifference to a wide range of health and safety issues.  See Feed Your Heroic Imagination

Deadly space lessons go unheeded  Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia tragedies have much in common, By James Oberg NBC News space analyst  ..."But the internal hazards -- what investigation boards have called the "flawed safety culture" -- have proven much more insidious. This is the realm of convenient assumptions, of complacency, of willfulness, of use of statistical superstitions, of a false familiarity with an unblinking foe. It is a culture made possible by an all-too-human aversion to facing unpleasantness. It has become easy to look away from these horrible space disasters -- and I never call them "accidents," a term that relieves the people involved on the ground of ultimate responsibility.

See Eliminating Cultures of Silence  "Sadly, before each disaster, stake holders saw clear warning signs for catastrophe and yet they said nothing. Trends show that similar cultures of silence proliferate in organizations across the country....The good news is that organizations who successfully handle these five issues transform cultures of silence into cultures of honesty and effective communication—eliminating potential catastrophes and saving lives."

Teachers who enforce safety rules not only avoid accidents in school but they give their students the skills and attitudes necessary to safeguard their future families and co-workers and "to live safer healthier longer lives."  (Jim Kaufman, Lab Safety Institute) 

... Silence begets silence. The bigger the silence, the more powerful it is. Silence can become so  all-encompassing that one is not even aware of it.  In such instances, entire constellations of thoughts, questions and conversations simply do not arise.  Or, if they do, the pervasiveness of the silence makes them seem dangerous. Perhaps the last person who tried to break the silence got in trouble, perhaps she became a pariah, perhaps she lost her job. --  Beyond Erin Brockovitch By Sonja Biorn-Hansen, in Rachel's Environment & Health News #815, http://www.rachel.org/?q=en/node/6438.  Sonja Biorn-Hansen an Environmental Engineer with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

"...those normally charged with protecting a school from liability (and its occupants from harm), ...may not be familiar with the scope of the risks. Too often, people with only a cursory understanding of the issues will consider themselves experts. Familiarity may also be surprisingly limited among those to whom a school generally turns for advice on health issues, such as school nurses, industrial hygienists, HVAC companies, consulting firms and health departments ...More often than not, they will under-emphasize the risks and over-emphasize the costs (and the inconveniences) of responding to a perceived problem."  "Legal Aspects of Pollution in Schools," Earon Davis, The Healthy School Handbook, National Education Association, 1995.

Press Release: New Data Shows Schools Ignore Children's Health: Groups Urge Action by EPA and States    Healthy Schools Network Executive Director Claire Barnett warns, “Parents are stunned when they discover schools have known about environmental factors affecting their child and have done little or nothing. Then they learn that no agency responds either. Every effort should be made to intervene when children are in harm’s way.”

Bring the Science of Chemical Safety to Your School 

Leadership in Science: Teaching Safely and Teaching Safety

Lesson: Know how to turn off your gas

Ohio Gas Line Pressure Leads to Explosion, Fires

Chemistry of everyday things

The IYC 2011 will be a year-long celebration in which anyone can participate. You can coordinate an activity, engage in a project, or simply share an idea. Join in now and become part of something special.     •    http://www.chemistry2011.org/     •    http://iyc2011.acs.org/     •    http://www.nbclearn.com/chemistrychapters 'Chemistry Now' Video Series Brings Science to Students

Bring the Science of Chemical Safety to Your School

Webcasts, podcasts, white papers, case studies, data sheets and more in the new SchoolDude Resource Library! 
http://www.schooldude.com/resources/

• Chemical Inventory Control and Storage Essentials for a Safe Educational Environment, 1/22/2012 Hosted by Roger Young, featuring Dave Waddell (North American Hazardous Materials Management Association) and Dr. Irene Cesa (Flinn Scientific Incorporated), this webcast examines best practices for chemical storage, inventory and disposal.

• Identify and Control Chemical Safety Risks Roger Young, featuring Dave Waddell from the North American Hazardous Materials Management Association, Joanie Arrott from TASB and Dale Zabel from School District of Kettle Moraine, WI 

Rules really are monuments, gravestones...

James Kaufman, founder of Laboratory Safety Institute, emphasizes the importance of schools teaching safety and teaching safely. Those who enforce safety rules not only avoid accidents in school but they give their students the skills and attitudes necessary to safeguard their future families and co-workers and "to live safer healthier longer lives."  

In a 2005 interview for Lessons of the 1937 Texas School Explosion, Kaufman emphasized that safety rules and regulations are the lessons we learn from other people’s mistakes and short cuts.  

“What rules really are, are monuments; they are gravestones,” he said. “It’s not that safety people sit up late trying to figure out how to make it take longer and cost more money and irritate the living daylights out of their colleagues. It’s that -- as night follows day --  if you do what those people did, sooner or later, you are going to get the same result.”   Kaufman said his father once asked him, “Jim, what’s the difference between school and life?  Well, in life the test comes first and the lesson comes afterwards.”

Chemical safety program cannot be overrated

The viability of a chemical safety program cannot be overrated. Unfortunately, most schools and universities don't emphasize their programs the way they should. Read more at:

MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT: Chemical Safety Programs

http://asumag.com/mag/university_maintenance_management_chemical/

American School and University

Dec 1, 2000 12:00 PM  RICHARD SHAW