History

• Environmental drilling safety was a hit-and-miss proposition as recently as 20 years ago. Beginning in the mid-1980s, employee health and safety regulations began to take shape. In the environmental industry, it was the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) of 1986 (commonly known as SARA Title III) that began the era of wholesale improvements to safety training.
  
  

Significance

• Drilling holes in the ground at industrial or commercial properties—or in busy rights-of-way—is wrought with hazards including underground and overhead utility conduits (electrical, phone, water, sewer, irrigation, fiber optics, cable TV and the like), traffic hazards caused by the need to reroute traffic around your work area, and countless opportunities for suffering blunt trauma, pinch or crush injuries, slips/trips/falls, and exposure to hazardous wastes or petroleum products. An environmental drilling HASP allows you to take active steps--based on this preplanned, site-specific document--to reduce or eliminate the chance of experiencing one of these events.
  
  

Time Frame

• Depending upon the scope and complexity of the particular H&S program that your company has in place, the period of time it takes to prepare an approvable HASP can range from one day to more than a week, and may involve the use of one or more subcontracted specialists to provide the data required for aspects of the plan such as finding and marking out the locations of on-site and off-site underground utilities and obtaining as-built drawings of site improvements from the property owner.
  
  

Features

• Common features of the HASP include a narrative site description and site history, a description and maps showing the locations of the planned work, documentation of the underground utility owners contacted and cleared, maps showing the locations all known underground and overhead utilities, descriptions of the known or suspected hazards, material safety data sheets (MSDS) for all chemical substances to be used or encountered during the site activities, and plans for emergency situations such as evacuation signals, regrouping locations and the location of the nearest hospital.
  
  

Expert Insight

• One of the main rules that should be in effect on any drilling site is, "If you see an unsafe activity, don't be afraid to speak up and call attention to it." No matter whether you're the consultant client, the driller, or a brand new driller's helper, it's your right and responsibility to stop an unsafe activity. By the same token, if a superior asks you to do something you consider unsafe, don't do it. Discuss why you think it is unsafe, and perhaps the method of accomplishing the task can be modified to get it done in a safer fashion. Never let anyone force or talk you into doing something you believe to be unsafe.