ILTA Health and Safety Subcommittee Held Member Led Discussions on Old Gasket Replacement and Reforms to the ILTA Safety Awards Program
Health and Safety Subcommittee Chairman Byrne Evans, IMTT, hosted an ILTA member led discussion on the emerging topic of old gasket replacement. The topic interested ILTA members and led to discussion and sharing of best practices on personal protective equipment (PPE). There was discussion and best practice sharing regarding protective outwear and protective electrical devices.
Next, Byrne Evans and Shannon Caldwell, Zenith Energy, led a discussion on reform of the ILTA Safety Awards Program. They delivered an update from the safety award working group. In addition to the report, there was a conversation about the possible changes to the safety award and the event horizon for immediate and longer-term changes for improving the ILTA Safety Awards program. In particular, the conversation focused on developing alternative metrics to measure safety.
The working group described their recommendations for a new approach focusing on leading indicators instead of lagging ones. The EHSS Committee will be asked to approve the approach ILTA will use beginning with the 2023 awards program. They requested volunteers to test the new evaluative tool. ILTA will send a request for volunteers to EHSS for volunteers.
To conclude day 1, the subcommittee convened a roundtable discussion on topics of interest for future EHSS meetings and ILTA 2023. The topics suggested included fire-retardant clothing and firefighters at terminals and terminal equipment decontamination.
On day 2, attendees listened to a presentation from Michael Breslin and Josh Dixon from the American Waterways Operations (AWO) for a discussion on safety issues for Barge Traffic at Terminals. AWO focused on discussing safety considerations for liquid cargo transfers from shore to the barge. AWO and ILTA agreed to work collaboratively to develop best practices to address the topics, including near miss and stop work responsibility procedures, communication between shoreside and vessel tankermen, dock appliances, and vessel to shore access.