Learning About Safety in Wastewater Treatment Plants

Establishing, following, and training for rigorous safety protocols is critical to the successful operation of a wastewater treatment plant. Not every safety incident is as severe as the 2006 Bethune Point Wastewater Plant Explosion that’s detailed in the video above, but that incident is an effective example of how horribly wrong things can go when safety protocols are lax and safety training for operators is minimal.

If you are seeking to learn more about safety in the wastewater treatment industry, a good first stop would be the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (better known as OSHA), a division of the US Department of Labor. It was created by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which also laid out a set of federal standards for workplace safety.

However, the act also allows individual states to submit and operate their own safety plans and requirements (which are generally fairly close to the federal plan anyway). State plans may cover all workers in a state, or may only cover state and local government workers only.

Here’s the breakdown of each state’s OSHA classification:

No state plan, follows federal OSHA plans:  
Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin

OSHA state plans covering only state/local government workplaces:
Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virgin Islands

OSHA state plans covering private and state/local government workplaces:
Alaska, Arizona, California*, Hawai’i, Kentucky, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan*, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon*, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming

*California, Michigan, and Oregon are the three states in which the state OSHA plans contain substantial differences from the federal OSHA plan.

Find more information about your state’s OSHA plan here >>
Find your state OSHA office here >>

If you are in need of assistance in identifying and/or fixing workplace safety issues, most states do have consultation services available for free as part of the On-Site Consultation Program. Other OSHA programs workplaces can participate in include the Alliance Program, the OSHA Strategic Partnership Program, the Voluntary Protection Programs, and the OSHA Challenge Program.

Read more about the OSHA cooperative programs here >>

A great introduction to OSHA and other safety regulations through the lens of wastewater treatment is this recorded webinar in the Environmental Finance Center Network’s wastewater operator certification series.

The main topics covered in the webinar include common hazards in wastewater treatment plants, personal protective equipment (PPE), confined space entry, equipment lockout/tagout procedures, hazardous chemical communication and safety data, excavation safety, and blood-borne pathogen standards.

Other common safety challenges to be cognizant of in wastewater treatment plants include slips and falls (due to the abundance of water in a facility), caught or crush hazards from moving machinery, and general good hygiene standards.

Finally, below is a sample of resources from our WaterOperator.org Resource Library covering safety in wastewater treatment. Search for others using our category and keyword filters!

• Safety Manual: Wastewater Treatment Plant Operation and Sewage Collection Systems
  • This 20-page manual from the Kentucky Public Service Commission covers safety practices for wastewater systems.
• Safety Issues in the Treatment Plant
  • This presentation from the 2017 National Association of Wastewater Technicians Conference goes through safety threats in wastewater treatment plants like chemical, atmospheric, & biological hazards; confined space; flammability; machine guarding; fall hazards; vehicle dangers; and PPE.  
• Wastewater Treatment Plant Safety & Health
  • This presentation given to the Wisconsin Chapter of the Central States Water Environment Association relates OSHA rules and standards to treatment plant operation and maintenance, and provides additional resources.
• Wastewater Safety
  • This presentation from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment reviews general hazards, discusses safety practices, and focuses most tightly on confined spaces, trenches, and PPE.
• Personal Protective Equipment: Respiratory Protection
  • This presentation from the Operator Training Committee of Ohio focuses on OSHA requirements for respiratory protection. Given in 2020, the presentation contains detailed guidance on types of masks and how to care for them.
• Electrical Safety & Arc Flash Awareness
  • This presentation from the Wisconsin Wastewater Operators Association details in great depth the few simple guidelines that are essential to maintaining personal safety when working with electrical hazards. Different types of hazards such as arc flashes and arc blasts are explained.
• General Safety in Lagoon Environments
  • This presentation given to the Michigan Water Environment Association explores the safety hazards of wastewater lagoons. These include confined spaces, oxygen deficiency/gases/vapors, pathogens, slips/falls/drowning, and even zika virus.

Methane Safety at Wastewater Plants

Last week, a large explosion at a water reclamation facility in Calumet, IL served as a somber reminder of the importance of following safe practices when dealing with methane gas or any flammable material at treatment plants. While no one was killed, there were injuries and some of these were severe.

With this in mind, there is no better time than now to review safety procedures and training practices for working around potentially explosive materials like methane.

An important first safety step, according to this Spring 2018 article in Missouri WEA's Current Magazine, is to check your facility for gas leaks and accumulations. When doing this, it is better to use a combustible gas meter than to rely on your sense of smell, because an individual's nose can become desensitized to the tell-tale rotten-egg smell over time. In addition, it is essential that workers know how to use monitors properly, and test them regularly.

Other recommendations include the installation of an automatic fan/ventilation system and a permanent gas detection system.

Finally, as this safety presentation from Suez points out, never perform hot work unless explosion risks have been identified and eliminated. If you need a visual reminder about why this is so important, this video from the US Chemical Society & Hazard Investigation Board (USCSB) lays out the events leading up to a fatal Florida wastewater plant explosion in 2006.

Gas and chemical hazards are an invisible but unavoidable fact in the operations of a wastewater treatment plant. Get a step ahead of the game by reviewing these tips and following the correct protocol - it's the best way to ensure that you return home safely each workday.

Featured Video: Lockout/Tagout

Why do things never seem to break when the weather's nice out? Somehow, whether it's the roof over your house, the battery in your car, or the machinery at your utility, things always seem to have a way of breaking down right when it's pouring rain, or there's a raging blizzard, or the temperature's over 100. Probably it's just that those are the breakdowns we find more memorable, while the quick fixes on sunny spring mornings fade into the background. Whatever the reason, the important thing to remember is to be safe, no matter what life is throwing at you while you're out getting your hands dirty. One important maintenance safety practice is known as lockout/tagout, or what OSHA now calls the Control of Hazardous Energy. This practice helps ensure that moving parts don't move when you're working on them (unless you want them to), and that no electricity is flowing through equipment that can shock you while you're repairing it. This week's video introduces the concept a little further, and explains how vital it is to worker safety. You can view it on YouTube here.

For more on lockout/tagout, see the OSHA page on hazardous energy. For more on lockout/tagout at water utilities, search our document database using the category "Safety" and the word "lockout" (without the quote marks) typed in the keyword search box.