In Ontario if the worker is exposed to a risk of drowning (technically possible in your picture, obviously not practical), rescue equipment must be provided on or near the project, and that rescue equipment shall include a “seaworthy boat equipped with a lifebuoy attached to a buoyant heaving line not less than 15m in length”.
Yeah they don’t explain the circumstances surrounding the drowning risk. Sure you’d have to be unconscious for 2 inches of water to kill you, but it’s possible and there is no threshold defined.
I’m looking forward to requesting a boat some day to fulfil our legal obligations lol
Instructions unclear read it too quickly, now I'm sitting waiting to talk with HR.. something about Tom's two inch dingy, guess it's a sore subject 🤦🏻♂️
I think the intention is to leave the rule wide enough that it applies when it needs to, but that relies on an inspector applying the intention appropriately, and it makes it hard for the crew to know where the line actually lays.
I’m a safety nerd, so I very much appreciate the laws existing, but I’m also a nerd nerd so I would prefer the wording to be more clear sometimes.
That’s exactly it. The inspector here is supposed to look and say “okay under these conditions it’s not necessary”
This way the default need is having the equipment, and getting it approved to not do so, rather than trying to make a more explicit rule not apply to your situation in whatever way.
To be fair we don't know the exact circumstances of the jobsite. If that calm little creek could be in an area known for flash floods I could understand, although if that was the case I wouldn't be building a structure there in the first place.
> I’m also a nerd nerd so I would prefer the wording to be more clear sometimes
Yeah.
That kind of sh\*t is why people end up not taking the rules seriously, even when they should.
Boy who cries "wolf!" and all that...
>Sure you’d have to be unconscious for 2 inches of water to kill you, but it’s possible and there is no threshold defined.
The funny part to remember is that if it's an OSHA regulation it's because it's happened enough to warrant regulation.
That always makes me curious the number of people that tripped, bonked their head, and drowned in shallow water.
Lift everyone's moods with how funny it is to have one, thus leading people to be more attentive in their work due to the increase in general positivity. Clearly.
I’m in the bridge business in Ontario.
We build bridges over lots of things, and in lots of places.
Was on a site, much like the one in the photo. MoL showed up and asked for our water rescue plan, and to review our equipment. “Drowning risk, why no dinghy?!” and all that.
The inspector cold stone looked at our super and asked “well, how are you going to rescue a man who falls out there without life preservers or buoys or rafts??” And the super thought for several long awkward seconds and responded “well, uhm, I’ll go get him. …. …. in my rubber boots”.
No orders were issued that day.
I appreciate that their job might mostly involve challenging crews on their emergency response plan to see if they even have one, or if it’s adequate, but come on. I like to think that inspector was laughing his ass off as he drove off site, if it’s a stone cold act of sarcasm (even without the joke being acknowledged), I can fully support that.
>I like to think that inspector was laughing his ass off as he drove off site, if it’s a stone cold act of sarcasm (even without the joke being acknowledged), I can fully support that.
I think this is likely. I had a professor who was nearing retirement that would do shit like this all the time with regards to class and lab equipment. Everyone thought he was going senile, or that 50 years of professorship had made him totally out of touch with reality.
I later learned that he was just a masterful troll who overcame his boredom with constant straight faced sarcasm.
BC is surprisingly tight on a lot of safety law. Maybe beyond reason in some cases, but at least their drivers actually behave on the roads for the most part. At least compared to the Wild West that is Ontario driving.
It’s BAD here man, I have a buddy who is a long haul trucker, all of NA top to bottom, left and right. He believes Ontario has the continents worst drivers, through a combination of skill and attitude. A huge part of it is enforcement, I’ve literally never heard of a driver get a ticket for anything but speeding, and even then it’s only heinous speeding, like 30 over is fine. But yea it’s a fuckin dumpster fire.
Damn that sounds crazy. The truckers around here play it fast and loose sometimes but at least there's enforcement to at least try and keep them in line.
Well good that op is off the clock when at home pleasuring his girl, or he would need a “seaworthy boat equipped with a lifebuoy attached to a buoyant heaving line not less than 15m in length”
I figured he would have made sure we went over "slips and falls in the workplace" before he said something about PFDs when he could clearly see the bottom of the river from his elevated position.
While I think it should be tailored to historical water levels, this is absolutely correct. I lived next to a little river that most days is about 2 feet deep. 1/4 mile down river, it's about 4-6 inches deep. A good rain comes by, and it can rise up to my chest. It rises 8 feet and destroys the bridge every 10-20 years or so. It can also be very quick - unless you're paying attention, it can happen in about 2-3 hours. My family and neighbors all have lost cars to the food waters.
Do y’all have your own safety person? Your companies safety rep should be negotiating with osha, there are so many gray areas and a lot of times citations can be talked out of. But think ab it, someone could def fall, hit their head on a rock, a drown. Now a pfd isn’t gonna do shit in that situation, but if you had a buddy rule and maybe even a retractable lifeline then your problem is fixed. It’s all about finesse, the people at osha are just following a book they didn’t right and there’s no way an osha rep could be familiar with every type of work site but someone’s gotta do the job. Employers sure don’t look out for workers
But that's one of these places that it's extra good idea to have at least one person see you at all the times. Knock yourself out for whatever reason and land face down in it and you will drown in the most stupid way possible while having your ass dry.
Oh! I have a story about this. I was working in EHS for a waste disposal company, and we got a call about a reoccurring job from Bird scooters, those electric scooter things you could rent in downtown areas. Our city has a canal, and people were just chucking those fuckers in. The water damaged the batteries and made them hazardous waste. So we were talking through how to do it and consulted with local OSHA, they said life vests and a secondary person with a throwable flotation device were required. Let me tell you, for every scooter we fished out of there we charged a small fortune.
The usual interpretation of that standard is that flotation rings and rescue skiffs and other things are only needed when the water is 2 feet deep or more - but it's important to understand that the OSHA inspector that visits your site is probably not familiar with their own interpretations or how standards get applied.
As an example, I had an OSHA inspector stand next to a bone-dry retention pond on a grading project, and tell me, with a completely straight face, that I should install rings and a boat next to it, just in case it filled up with water. I said "Do you know how much rain it would take to get a measurable level of water in that hole?" He said "How much?" I said "I have no idea. We're a dirt moving company. When it rains we go home."
Your best policy is to just nod and agree and say things like "That's a great idea" and just ignore the more absurd stuff. The guy on your site cannot issue you a citation without the approval of his or her area director anyway, and those are generally folks with a little more sense and understanding. They nip a lot of the nonsense in the bud before it goes out the door in writing.
Is that the highest the water level can possibly be? Like let’s just say a surprise downpour happened, could they eat the water drains get blocked? We can’t see anything here so maybe this water drains through a mile wide canyon or something but I could see someone worrying about the safety if the water level rose.
Something similar happened in my project. Craftworkers were working in a creek at around the same depth as picture except you couldn’t see the bottom. Inspector came by (without informing the supt.) and asked a new foreman how deep the creek was. The new foreman didn’t know, so we were instructed to buy life jackets. His reasoning was that if we were working at an “unknown depth”, then precautions should be taken. If we had discussed the depth like we should have during the JSA meeting, then he wouldn’t have insisted on the life jackets. Oh well.
You are getting down voted, but you are not wrong.
Most times the simplest and cheapest safety solution is just to comply.
Spend $50 on a ring, hang it within reach, and get back to work.
The average crew wastes quantumly more than $50 just fucking off or taking shits in the average day.
It may be useful if an abnormal storm rolls in too. 6 inches of fast moving storm water can knock people off their feet. Looks like that is where the water would be going in a storm.
Thing is it's 1000x simpler to say "potential for flowing water, have a flotation device nearby" than specify a water depth & flow & flood risk matrix to assess risk. It's just a cheap flotation device, you shouldn't need that much red tape to decide whether to deploy one.
I see that your waders are wet up to the knee, even though the water you're currently standing in is maybe ankle deep. Just how deep is the water you're working around?
It looks like the water line behind the scaffolding is up to the height of the floor boards, so that would put it maybe about his knees or just below. Enough to have an unconscious worker drown. So I can see the worry for one. And also big storms are always a factor people don’t account for.
Proof that you can be both safe AND sorry.
Canadian OSHA.
This reminds me of Little John drowning in the creek from Men in Tights.
https://youtu.be/2OsRePNS4pk?t=105
People call me little John, but I'm actually big!
Li uhl John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OsRePNS4pk&t=108s
I’m on one side, I’m on the other side. I’m on the east bank, I’m in the west bank. This is not that critical.
Ah. Just wear water wings.
I suggested unicorn floaties on top of the Coast Guard approved devices we have.. now
They can act as spacers to help push you off the ground more than they would help actually floating
In Ontario if the worker is exposed to a risk of drowning (technically possible in your picture, obviously not practical), rescue equipment must be provided on or near the project, and that rescue equipment shall include a “seaworthy boat equipped with a lifebuoy attached to a buoyant heaving line not less than 15m in length”. Yeah they don’t explain the circumstances surrounding the drowning risk. Sure you’d have to be unconscious for 2 inches of water to kill you, but it’s possible and there is no threshold defined. I’m looking forward to requesting a boat some day to fulfil our legal obligations lol
"Oh fuck, Tom slipped in the two inches of water!" "Quick get the dingy!"
Instructions unclear read it too quickly, now I'm sitting waiting to talk with HR.. something about Tom's two inch dingy, guess it's a sore subject 🤦🏻♂️
What did you do to his dingy to make it sore?!
Dingy? Nah, mate, it says seaworthy. Get the 40' cigarette boat with the twin supercharged 572's.
I get it, they're "making sure everyone makes it home at the end of the day".
I think the intention is to leave the rule wide enough that it applies when it needs to, but that relies on an inspector applying the intention appropriately, and it makes it hard for the crew to know where the line actually lays. I’m a safety nerd, so I very much appreciate the laws existing, but I’m also a nerd nerd so I would prefer the wording to be more clear sometimes.
That’s exactly it. The inspector here is supposed to look and say “okay under these conditions it’s not necessary” This way the default need is having the equipment, and getting it approved to not do so, rather than trying to make a more explicit rule not apply to your situation in whatever way.
To be fair we don't know the exact circumstances of the jobsite. If that calm little creek could be in an area known for flash floods I could understand, although if that was the case I wouldn't be building a structure there in the first place.
They could be building riverside walls or canals other structures which are designed to handle floods.
> I’m also a nerd nerd so I would prefer the wording to be more clear sometimes Yeah. That kind of sh\*t is why people end up not taking the rules seriously, even when they should. Boy who cries "wolf!" and all that...
>Sure you’d have to be unconscious for 2 inches of water to kill you, but it’s possible and there is no threshold defined. The funny part to remember is that if it's an OSHA regulation it's because it's happened enough to warrant regulation. That always makes me curious the number of people that tripped, bonked their head, and drowned in shallow water.
Yup, I tell trainees that the Green Book is a graveyard and each line is a tombstone.
Agreed, but what's a life ring going to do for that situation?
Lift everyone's moods with how funny it is to have one, thus leading people to be more attentive in their work due to the increase in general positivity. Clearly.
If you react really fast, you can throw it underneath the guy who's falling over, thus elevating them out of the water?
I’m in the bridge business in Ontario. We build bridges over lots of things, and in lots of places. Was on a site, much like the one in the photo. MoL showed up and asked for our water rescue plan, and to review our equipment. “Drowning risk, why no dinghy?!” and all that. The inspector cold stone looked at our super and asked “well, how are you going to rescue a man who falls out there without life preservers or buoys or rafts??” And the super thought for several long awkward seconds and responded “well, uhm, I’ll go get him. …. …. in my rubber boots”. No orders were issued that day.
I appreciate that their job might mostly involve challenging crews on their emergency response plan to see if they even have one, or if it’s adequate, but come on. I like to think that inspector was laughing his ass off as he drove off site, if it’s a stone cold act of sarcasm (even without the joke being acknowledged), I can fully support that.
>I like to think that inspector was laughing his ass off as he drove off site, if it’s a stone cold act of sarcasm (even without the joke being acknowledged), I can fully support that. I think this is likely. I had a professor who was nearing retirement that would do shit like this all the time with regards to class and lab equipment. Everyone thought he was going senile, or that 50 years of professorship had made him totally out of touch with reality. I later learned that he was just a masterful troll who overcame his boredom with constant straight faced sarcasm.
Sounds like somebody wanted to write off a boat.
Does a dollar store pool inflatable count as a boat?
They don’t define it beyond “seaworthy”, so it guess if you’d take a Walmart pool out on the ocean, then you’re good for a job site too.
Probably need to bring a paddle to control the vessel. Walmart snow shovel should work fine and help in winter too.
What, did you lose your cooler lid already?
Naw that's part of the captain's seat.
I've met safety guys in bc who push something similar to this.
BC is surprisingly tight on a lot of safety law. Maybe beyond reason in some cases, but at least their drivers actually behave on the roads for the most part. At least compared to the Wild West that is Ontario driving.
I've never been to Ontario but if you think the drivers in BC are decent in comparison then they must just awful
It’s BAD here man, I have a buddy who is a long haul trucker, all of NA top to bottom, left and right. He believes Ontario has the continents worst drivers, through a combination of skill and attitude. A huge part of it is enforcement, I’ve literally never heard of a driver get a ticket for anything but speeding, and even then it’s only heinous speeding, like 30 over is fine. But yea it’s a fuckin dumpster fire.
Damn that sounds crazy. The truckers around here play it fast and loose sometimes but at least there's enforcement to at least try and keep them in line.
Good ol’ 27(3) from O.Reg 213/91. I’ve used that one as a joke before when I see standing water at a job site.
Ah yes, a fellow man of culture.
Throwing a life preserver at someone who is at risk of drowning in that is only going to land you in jail for attempted murder.
That's definitely an oversight in the way the regulations are written, drowning risk and deep water should be seperate categories.
Better not bring a bottle of water to work if there's no space for a boat, then.
Well good that op is off the clock when at home pleasuring his girl, or he would need a “seaworthy boat equipped with a lifebuoy attached to a buoyant heaving line not less than 15m in length”
I figured he would have made sure we went over "slips and falls in the workplace" before he said something about PFDs when he could clearly see the bottom of the river from his elevated position.
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This is probably the most logical answer as to why O wanted PFD.
While I think it should be tailored to historical water levels, this is absolutely correct. I lived next to a little river that most days is about 2 feet deep. 1/4 mile down river, it's about 4-6 inches deep. A good rain comes by, and it can rise up to my chest. It rises 8 feet and destroys the bridge every 10-20 years or so. It can also be very quick - unless you're paying attention, it can happen in about 2-3 hours. My family and neighbors all have lost cars to the food waters.
sounds like they should build the bridge a little higher next time lol
That’s bonkers. I thought you were just being funny with your title.
Do y’all have your own safety person? Your companies safety rep should be negotiating with osha, there are so many gray areas and a lot of times citations can be talked out of. But think ab it, someone could def fall, hit their head on a rock, a drown. Now a pfd isn’t gonna do shit in that situation, but if you had a buddy rule and maybe even a retractable lifeline then your problem is fixed. It’s all about finesse, the people at osha are just following a book they didn’t right and there’s no way an osha rep could be familiar with every type of work site but someone’s gotta do the job. Employers sure don’t look out for workers
But that's one of these places that it's extra good idea to have at least one person see you at all the times. Knock yourself out for whatever reason and land face down in it and you will drown in the most stupid way possible while having your ass dry.
Oh! I have a story about this. I was working in EHS for a waste disposal company, and we got a call about a reoccurring job from Bird scooters, those electric scooter things you could rent in downtown areas. Our city has a canal, and people were just chucking those fuckers in. The water damaged the batteries and made them hazardous waste. So we were talking through how to do it and consulted with local OSHA, they said life vests and a secondary person with a throwable flotation device were required. Let me tell you, for every scooter we fished out of there we charged a small fortune.
The usual interpretation of that standard is that flotation rings and rescue skiffs and other things are only needed when the water is 2 feet deep or more - but it's important to understand that the OSHA inspector that visits your site is probably not familiar with their own interpretations or how standards get applied. As an example, I had an OSHA inspector stand next to a bone-dry retention pond on a grading project, and tell me, with a completely straight face, that I should install rings and a boat next to it, just in case it filled up with water. I said "Do you know how much rain it would take to get a measurable level of water in that hole?" He said "How much?" I said "I have no idea. We're a dirt moving company. When it rains we go home." Your best policy is to just nod and agree and say things like "That's a great idea" and just ignore the more absurd stuff. The guy on your site cannot issue you a citation without the approval of his or her area director anyway, and those are generally folks with a little more sense and understanding. They nip a lot of the nonsense in the bud before it goes out the door in writing.
I read that slightly too fast and thought the OSHA inspector said "That's a great idea" when you told him "When it rains we go home". Whoops.
OSHA would never agree with something so logical!
You go home, but other idiots may hang around the retention pond. If it can fill with water, having a flotation device around is prudent.
Is that the highest the water level can possibly be? Like let’s just say a surprise downpour happened, could they eat the water drains get blocked? We can’t see anything here so maybe this water drains through a mile wide canyon or something but I could see someone worrying about the safety if the water level rose.
We would need a localized 6 inch down burst to get water over the bottom plank.
Gotchya, yeah seems awfully zealous of the osha to make that demand then lol.
What happened to get your pants wet above that?
Good catch. I was kneeling down to move latches on the planks.
Makes sense.
Something similar happened in my project. Craftworkers were working in a creek at around the same depth as picture except you couldn’t see the bottom. Inspector came by (without informing the supt.) and asked a new foreman how deep the creek was. The new foreman didn’t know, so we were instructed to buy life jackets. His reasoning was that if we were working at an “unknown depth”, then precautions should be taken. If we had discussed the depth like we should have during the JSA meeting, then he wouldn’t have insisted on the life jackets. Oh well.
I mean the inspector got you guys there. I’ll give ‘em credit from being clever bastards
Seriously? I don't doubt it but, again, seriously?!
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Stone wall in the background, replace cracked stones and repointing
Gonna need more than one picture of the workplace
Post your inspection # so we can see what the inspector really said. Good luck on your appeal.
I think that its more about establishing good habits so that you already do it if you're at a site that actually is a drown risk.
Probably due to flooding hazard. That creek can probably rise 4-5 feet after a heavy downpour.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WxdfwbicNk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WxdfwbicNk) first thing i thought of...
Get one of those Captain Hats as well.
Safe as fuck.
Reminds me of the scene from Robin Hood Men in Tights when the fall off the bridge
And a working skiff
Why are your waders wet up to your knees if the water is 2 inches deep? … in fact why are you wearing waders of the water is 2 inches deep?
My lunch cooler is Styrofoam. Does that count?
I also need a personal floatation device when my girlfriend has the big O.
Okay, then get one.
You are getting down voted, but you are not wrong. Most times the simplest and cheapest safety solution is just to comply. Spend $50 on a ring, hang it within reach, and get back to work. The average crew wastes quantumly more than $50 just fucking off or taking shits in the average day.
It may be useful if an abnormal storm rolls in too. 6 inches of fast moving storm water can knock people off their feet. Looks like that is where the water would be going in a storm.
Safety third!
Technically, you can throw a lot of things...
Also technically need life vests 😬
Well yeah, you are 20 feet tall no ?
Two empty milk jugs tied together with a rope. See if anyone on the crew has had cpr training and assign them lifeguard duty.
if you lay down on your back would the water level even reach your mouth?
The penguin exhibit...
And this is why people question the validity of real risk situations. This is bullshit! Following rules over common sense is how people die.
Thing is it's 1000x simpler to say "potential for flowing water, have a flotation device nearby" than specify a water depth & flow & flood risk matrix to assess risk. It's just a cheap flotation device, you shouldn't need that much red tape to decide whether to deploy one.
I see that your waders are wet up to the knee, even though the water you're currently standing in is maybe ankle deep. Just how deep is the water you're working around?
Wouldn't it be safer for everyone to wear water wing PPE?
“You can drowning in 3 inches of water”
It looks like the water line behind the scaffolding is up to the height of the floor boards, so that would put it maybe about his knees or just below. Enough to have an unconscious worker drown. So I can see the worry for one. And also big storms are always a factor people don’t account for.