Much has been made in the general media about how unconventional oil and gas development has damaged or threatens to damage flora, fauna, and air in areas of the US where drilling and production have surged.
In fact, New York State in 2010 imposed a temporary moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing and in 2013 a New York appeals court ruled individual towns had the right to proscribe the practice (OGJ Online, May 2, 2013).
Other US localities have sought to restrict the practice as well. And similar battle lines are drawn in the UK.
Less attention, however, has been paid to the workers who have streamed to high-paying but often dangerous jobs in the hot basins, especially North Dakota, Southeast and West Texas, and Pennsylvania and Ohio. In 2012—the most recent year for which data are available from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration—worker deaths in "oil and gas extraction" were the most for any year: 138, an increase of 23% over deaths in 2011.
This trend caught the attention of Ed Foulke, former OSHA assistant secretary of labor under US President George W. Bush and current co-chair of the law firm Fisher & Phillips's Workplace Safety & Catastrophe Management Practice Group.
He has studied the trends in OSHA statistics and offered OGJ some remedies.
Solutions
Foulke cited the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages in noting that in 2011, there were more than 450,000 workers employed in oil and gas extraction and support. They spanned the many industrial processes employed to drill and service a well, processes that frequently required use of specialized equipment and specialized work crews.
The research notes that during 2003-10, the BLS's Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries found 823 oil and gas extraction workers were killed on the job–a fatality rate seven times greater than for all US industries.
OSHA data for oil field injuries, Foulke said, revealed that only 12% of the deaths involved workers who had more than 5 years on the job, while 46% involved workers with less than 1 year on the job.
The data showed that safety and health hazards and dangerous conditions that can result in fatalities among oil and gas workers include vehicular accidents, "struck-by/caught-in/caught-between," explosions and fires, falls, confined spaces, and chemical exposure.
For some of these classes of accident Foulke proposed some commonsense solutions:
• Vehicular accidents: Require and enforce the wearing of seat belts at all times; forbid cell phone talking or texting while driving; assiduously maintain vehicles and use only those that afford the highest degree of occupant protection; and improve roads to the job site.
• Struck-by/caught-in/caught-between accidents: Enforce the wearing of appropriate protective and reflective gear at all times; post signs to explain clearly what is going on; enforce the use of proper lock out and tag out policies, procedures, and equipment to prevent the unexpected "energization" of equipment.
• Explosions and fires: Ensure that workers are in a structure that will protect them, not collapse on them; implement a process hazard analysis to identify hazards and potential for explosions; conduct daily inspections to look for leaks, smoking where fumes occur, and other possible hazards; ensure all electrical equipment is properly grounded and motors are enclosed to prevent sparks.
• Falls: Erect guard rails to prevent falls from any height above 4 ft; enforce the wearing of personal protective equipment, such as lanyards and harnesses, where guard rails are not appropriate; erect flags and stanchions at least 6 ft from any edge.
• Confined spaces: Identify confined spaces that require permits and are covered by OSHA standards; constantly test the air inside the space; provide oxygen or fresh air—adequate ventilation—if necessary; train workers on how to enter the space and how to rescue someone from the space.
• Chemical exposure: As of Dec. 1, 2013, Foulke said, and in an effort to establish global consistency, new OSHA rules govern the labeling of dangerous chemicals and the composition of safety data sheets.
Circularity
It's not lost on a few of us who were around the industry during earlier booms, especially the early 1980s, that we've seen this pattern before: new people in new jobs pushed to complete tasks after little training, leading to more accidents, injuries, and deaths.
And training now as then is key, Foulke said. He urged more inspectors, modern equipment, and strong internal risk management.
