5/23/2016 Face Shields; quite possibly the forgotten PPE. While wearing safety glasses is becoming a “no brainer,” outside of specific hot work activities, face shields seem to be an extraneous piece of equipment that is only considered when one wants to be extra cautious, however, never really mandatory. After all, Read more
3/14/2016 The terms, leading and lagging indicators were first used in the financial world. While a leading indicator is designed to help determine or predict the future, a lagging indicator provides information as what went right or wrong. Thus, a leading indicator uses information prior to an event or occurrence, Read more
2/29/2016 A number of years ago I worked at a facility where underground construction activities were being performed. This project was a long-term project where a plethora of heavy equipment as well as other types of construction activities were being conducted on a regular basis. One of the greatest hazards Read more
2/15/2016 On Oct. 23, 2015, an underground containment system for natural gas ruptured just north of Los Angeles, California in the quiet community of Porter Ranch. This facility is owned and operated by the Southern California Gas Company and is referred to as the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. Natural Gas Read more
6/10/2013 Just before Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary film, The Birds, hit the silver screen, billboards across the country were advertising the 1963 thriller with the catchy phrase, “The Birds is Coming.” I remember many conversations centered on whether the sentence structure was correct or incorrect (as funny as it sounds, it Read more
3/9/2015 Last month the news reported, once more, another case of road rage that resulted in one person taking another’s life. It occurred in a residential neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada that began with a traffic altercation and ended with an exchange of gunfire. In the end a 44-year-old mother Read more
5/9/2016 Many projects find us working near water. Historically, the most notable project involving work on or near water was the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, where cofferdams were used extensively and diving to the depths of the river to locate appropriate foundations for supporting the bridge. Today there are Read more
2/6/2012 The year is 1866. The American Civil War ended only one year earlier and life in New York City was returning to its normal pace focusing on urban affairs (New York not only had brigades engaged in battle, but this was also the scene of the great draft riots Read more
8/31/2015 I once attended a class at an industrial hygiene conference where we learned how to derive methamphetamine from the OTC cold remedy medication, Sudafed®. For years this was the starting ingredient used in clandestine labs. Iodine was used as a reducing agent (this is the opposite of an oxidizer, Read more
12/28/2020 It happened a number of years ago; when Las Vegas was building casinos so fast that even the local residents couldn’t keep up with what was going to be the latest and greatest theme-related high rise on the strip. These structures are big, and contractors were getting sizable bonuses Read more