I must confess. After twenty plus years working the issues of regulatory compliance, transportation of dangerous goods, environmental protection, emergency and hazardous waste management and occupational health and safety, I haven’t seen everything and I’m happy, even relieved, about this fact. I realize this confession of mine is not what most would typically expect to hear from a person who has dedicated much of his career to hazards communications and accident prevention. Indeed, I have been through my fair share dealing in the legal issues of nonconformity to these regulations, the misuse of chemical products and the accidents that occur as consequence. I’ve been deep in the regulatory alligator pit, written the affidavits and have been challenged as the “expert witness”. I’ve had to set records straight (at times to people thought to know better) about the inherent risks to health, the environmental and physical property due to the improper storage, handling and exposures to dangerous goods. I’ve been the proverbial thorn in the Achilles’ heel of company administrators concerned more about their bottom lines, and the guardian angel of workplace employees.
It’s not to say that I’m field inexperienced; quite the contrary. I have felt the impact of explosion, decontaminated under a drenching shower, fought fire and treated human flesh damaged by chemical burns. Over the years I’ve witnessed many tragic occurrences – the results of neglectful ignorance of good information, blind faith in misinformation and worse, no information.
For the most part, I guess I could say that I’ve been there, done that. Though I shudder at the thought that with all I’ve experienced, it is comparatively very minute to what happens around this world where dangerous chemicals are involved. And all because a simple order of the day, is not followed everyday – prevention.
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