Art safety: a good streaming video

Bob Grieshaber (UW-Milwaukee) brought to my attention a streaming video on art safety in higher education art studios. Kudos to the creators of the video at Yale University and the Rhode Island School of Design. It is a very good twenty minute overview of safety hazards, and is targeted directly to artists.

EH&S Newsletters

[Note: an updated version of this posting will be available at our OSLP website.]

Sometimes, the delivery of environment, health and safety information to your target campus audience is best done via newletter. For those times, we provide the following examples from which to take inspiration. (If you would like your campus EH&S newsletter listed here, send your suggestion to our office.)

Newsletters from University of Wisconsin System campuses

River Falls—Risk Management Safety Newsletter.

Oshkosh—Shop Talk: A newsletter for and about facilities professionals at UW-Oshkosh keeps their facilities department employees up-to-date with the latest news and provides a safety tip in the “Safety Corner.” On the Facilities Management main page, links to the most recent Shop Talk editions are at the lower right of the page.

Madison—Safety First. A newsletter from the UW-Madison Department of Environment, Health and Safety for the campus community. [added Aug. 20 -- Lab Safety Spectrum & Radiation Review Newsletters]

Stevens Point—Safety Notes is an occasional newsletter typically focusing on one EH&S topic.

Milwaukee—Go to the Environmental Affairs web page, and click the Newsletter link in the left column for the most recent edition.

Newsletters from other campuses

Here are links to a small sampling of newsletters from other colleges and universities:

Rutgers—Link to the spring 2008 edition of the REHS News. This was an award recipient at the CSHEMA conference in July 2008.

UC Davis—Safety Signals.

Northwestern—Two newsletters: NUtrino: News and training for radiation workers at Northwestern University, and Research Safety News.

University of Maryland—Safety Talk.

Case Western Reserve—Safety Comes First.

Governor's Task Force on Global Warming

Governor Doyle signed Executive Order 191 bringing together a prominent and diverse group of key Wisconsin business, industry, government, energy and environmental leaders to create a Task Force on Global Warming. After examining the effects of, and solutions to, global warming in Wisconsin, the Task Force will create a state plan of action to reduce our state's greenhouse gas emissions. The Department of Natural Resources and the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) are providing staff support to the Task Force. (More.... )

Artificial turf and lead: another agency chimes in

Earlier this year, we had the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issuing a health advisory for certain artificial turf surfaces. Now, the staff of the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has concluded that young children are not at risk from exposure to lead in these fields. For those of you into wipe sampling methodology, the CPCS evaluation has some interesting details about the assumptions and limitations of the study underlying their conclusion.

Higher Education Act

On August 4, 2008, the Higher Education Act passed the House of Representatives and the Senate and is expected to be signed by President Bush shortly. Among the provisions are:

• Under the Clery Act, procedures for emergency response, notification, and evacuation must be tested on an annual basis; however, these tests can be table-top tests or simulations.
• Dropped from the Act’s language is the 30-minute requirement for notification of students, faculty, and staff during emergency situations. Also dropped is the proposed creation of a National Center for Campus Public Safety.
• Colleges and universities will be required to report and track fires that cause personal or property damage.

More information is available at the URMIA website.

Selecting and Maintaining Smoke Detectors

Fire and life safety engineers can avoid common problems by properly designing, installing, and maintaining ionization and photoelectric smoke detectors.
By AJ Sevast, SET, Consultant, RJA Group, Greenwood Village, Colo. -- Consulting-Specifying Engineer, 7/1/2008

Smoke detectors can have a lifecycle of up to 20 years if certain design and installation recommendations are followed and if annual maintenance is performed for each detector. Given the tight budget of many companies in today's economy, a reliable fire system can be one less budget issue and one less concern for the owner, operator, or lessee.
Generally, when fire systems fail, it is due to lack of planning and maintenance. The following describes common problems associated with detectors that can be avoided at different phases of fire system design, installation, and maintenance. (Read More.... )

DNR posts new Composting web pages

For facilities interested in composting food or yard waste: DNR recently posted new Web pages with information on composting at large-scale facilities and on farms. These pages give an overview of different composting methods, an explanation of Wisconsin's rules and regulations for composting operations, information on requirements for compost use and marketing, and links to additional resources. We hope these resources will raise awareness about the importance of composting yard materials, food scraps and other organics and provide the information businesses and local governments need to increase diversion of organic materials and produce good quality compost.
The new pages are available at
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/wm/recycle/issues/compost.htm.
Source: DNR Waste and Materials Management program