Developing a Health and Safety Plan for Hazardous Field Work in Remote Areas

Developing health and safety plans (HASPs) is a common feature of occupational safety and health for many workplaces. Formal HASPs are a requirement for hazardous waste work, requiring the anticipation and identification of hazards and embodying the training, equipping, and evaluation of workers. Aside from OSHA, there are relatively few manuals or examples and virtually no papers that provide practical guidance in what a HASP should cover or how to create and implement one. Moreover, existing guidance refers to spatially circumscribed worksites. This article details development of a HASP to cover field researchers and ship personnel conducting scientific research in a remote area of the world (Amchitka Island in the western Aleutians), hundreds of kilometers from the nearest emergency room. It required characterizing the kinds of work to be performed and anticipating the hazards that could be encountered. It illustrates the meshing of a general HASP with a ship safety plan, a dive safety plan, and specialized topics, including stop-work authority, rock climbing, firearms, vehicle safety, and communication strategy. Remote area operations are a growing challenge facing the profession. An expedition of this sort requires extensive planning and experienced safety personnel and cannot rely on luck to ensure the safe return of participants.

Keywords:

• HASP
• hazardous materials
• radiation safety
• wilderness medicine
• field research
• ecological sampling

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Preparing the HASP and this description of it have required the diligence and cooperation of many people, including many secondary sources not named below:

CRESP staffers: As each new potential hazard was uncovered, Lisa Bliss, Joy Hardy, and Xiomara Waldron endured a lot of stressful moments updating the draft HASP in the weeks before the expedition got under way. Likewise, CRESP Management Board members: Bernard Goldstein, Vikram Vyas, David Kosson, Michael Greenberg, and Henry Mayer played roles in various decisions at various stages. Field Team leaders Bob Patrick, Mark Johnson, Martyn Unsworth, and David Barnes identified important HASP components and were responsible for implementation.

We thank all of the field participants, but especially our team members from the Aleutian communities: Dan Snigaroff, Ronald Snigaroff, and Tim Stamm for their input, feedback, and role in implementation. Douglas Dasher of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, and Anne Morkill and Vernon Byrd of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, had important input into our knowledge of conditions and problems at Amchitka.

In addition, there were many people in these units who helped us with permits and field information, not specifically related to health and safety. Peter Sanders and Monica Sanchez of the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration had primary responsibility for Amchitka. Larry Duffy and John Eichelberger of University of Alaska-Fairbanks provided valuable information on the biological and physical environment we would encounter. James Breeding and John Mackin of the Rutgers Department of Risk Management and Insurance gave invaluable guidance on maritime vessel types, as well as safety and very complicated insurance considerations, We formally recognize Ocean Explorer Captain Ray Haddon, Mate Glenn Jahnke, and ship's crew: Don Delacruz, Bill Dixon, Joao do Mar, and Walter Pestka who played an hour-to-hour role in keeping us fed and safe; and Jerry Downing of B&N Fisheries.

Finally M.G. and J.B. thank their Anchorage hosts, Andy Sonneborn and David Sonneborn, M.D.

Notes

^A The hazardous exposure to noise in the “laboratory” adjacent to the ship's engine room was not anticipated.