Dealing with health hazards is not difficult.
It requires an honesty check to establish that you do have those particular hazards
on site.
You then adopt a very rigorous standard risk-based approach based on your planning, identification,
risk assessment, control implementation, monitoring and review program.
At the end of the day, while there may be slightly different tools used, the process
to actually implement controls to manage that hazard is very similar to our safety environment.
In our sector as such we have some large well-organised companies.
They have good systems.
They're able to implement those systems, monitor them and review them.
On the flipside of that, we do have an extensive extractive sector, some 2000 in New South
Wales, of smaller operators which could be classed as mum-and-dad operators at the end
of the day.
Often they struggle with the basic information on how to tackle health hazards.
They often need additional training and education so that they are able to first of all identify
that they have hazards and then be able to engage with people and implement controls
to manage those hazards.
We're not dissimilar to other industries - the construction industry et cetera - but at the
moment I would suggest that one of the major health hazards as such is that one of dust.
We know that we've had some rare occurrences of black lung and also possibly the potential
for silicosis.
Noise as such is a health hazard on site that has been around a very long time, and it is
one that over a period of time can certainly affect the workforce in a very detrimental
way.
Not leaving alone our musculoskeletal or known as manual handling hazards that we've got
on site.
They're very real.
They also raise their head in some of our smaller operators where they may not be as
mechanised as other operations.
We also have fatigue, which is a very prevalent health hazard that some sites they're doing
excellent work on to manage.
Finally, to round out that we've got UV et cetera, where people certainly if not controlled
are likely to possibly end up with carcinomas or a melanoma.
One of the first things is to actually recognise that you may have those particular hazards
on site.
Once you've done that - and the best way to do that is to engage and consult with your
workforce and those people who are actually being exposed to those particular health hazards
on site.
There's certainly no doubt at the end of the day that people or long-term employees that
have been working in the quarry sector are likely to be exposed to that.
They're certainly going to be best positioned to identify those particular areas where those
hazards exist.
Undoubtedly those people need to be involved in what we're going to talk about, risk-based
approach.
There's a duty to consult with workers with regards to various activities and tasks that
happen on site.
That duty extends to the identification of hazards and the development of principle hazard
management plans, which in this particular case in the industry we work in - there is
a principle hazard management plan for dust and airborne contaminants.
The first step with regards to implementing a structured risk-based approach to identifying
a hazard is to do some planning to start with, with regards to developing a scope as to what
you're trying to achieve at the end of the day.
Once you've settled on that, you then need to engage, consult with your workforce and
key players.
Essentially you're making a list, for want of a better word, of those tasks and activities
and hazards out there where health hazards are present, and in some cases give the operators
grief on a daily basis.
If you do a brainstorming session with your employees, then ultimately you will find the
majority of those health hazards that are on site.
One example on site with regards to exposure to a health hazard could be a truck driver
who's not just doing his job on a daily basis running up that haul road, but he's been there
for 20 years and the condition of that haul road is certainly conducive to musculoskeletal
exposure and hazards that he might have in that particular truck.
By the time he's 45 or 50, unless those particular hazards are controlled well there may be effects
with regards to that.
We could add to the list of tasks and activities that we're going to analyse during the risk-based
process.
Work areas as such.
We could define a work area.
A good example would be a workshop.
That particular workshop might have a number of health hazards in it including musculoskeletal
with lifting, noise with cutting and grinding, et cetera.
So often we may group those together and collectively analyse that during our risk-based approach.
The exposure to health hazards over a period of time and in a lot of cases where there
are quarry operators who are in the industry for a very long time is a very important consideration.
Unfortunately that is often why operators have not implemented effective controls immediately,
because the latency of the injury or illness actually appearing doesn’t physically put
the urgency on implementing effective controls immediately.
Once we have that list of health hazards and areas, et cetera, during the course of your
risk assessment we would apply a risk-based approach to ranking those particular hazards
so that we're going to start in the high priority areas.
Health hazards and safety hazards are assessed in a similar structured manner.
However, there are some subtle differences that can be used to improve the value of risk
assessment processes.
One of the basic differences in assessing the risks associated with safety hazards and
health hazards is that safety hazards are immediate, and the actual injury or the effect
to the person is immediate; they will feel something.
With health hazards, there is obviously a duration before the injury or illness will
come to effect.
Determining the level of dust or noise in a work area is actually quite simple.
It's a well-known process.
You can use things as simple as an app on a phone.
However, if you were in a situation where you were going to reach exceedances or levels,
national exposure standards, we would thoroughly recommend that you engage again subject matter
experts, professionals in that particular field to come in and do a sampling program,
who will then in most cases give you back NADA-accredited results that you then can
reference against those national standards.
Similar exposure groups are those groups of workers, contractors, employees, et cetera,
who have an exposure to a similar level of hazard that's on your site.
Not all employees, for instance, are going to be exposed to elevated dust levels.
You may have admin staff, you may have people that are infrequent truck drivers on site,
et cetera, who do not have that same exposure level.
So by grouping people together you can then better analyse those particular hazards and
the risk levels that those groups are exposed to.
There will be groups of workers who do have different levels of risk to the same hazard.
To ensure the controls remain effective, supervising employees will be tasked with specific activities.
Some of those may be visual.
Some of those may require readings.
Some of those may require observations.
That can be done at a site level.
Effectively, you're looking for that initial observation that a control may no longer be
effective.
Critical controls are those controls that if they were not to exist then there is a
strong likelihood of an incident or an unwanted outcome occurring.
When we're monitoring the effectiveness of our controls, quarry operators and mine operators
should have in place very structured inspection programs that require people who have been
trained and who are competent in that particular inspection process to go out on a predetermined
basis to ensure the controls remain effective.
In order for a control to remain effective, the site has to ensure that it is measured.
It's logical that during the course of the risk-based approach a set of controls was
developed.
Those controls are documented and they're then reflected in inspection sheets, workplace
inspection documents, et cetera.
In some cases, those sites have identified trigger levels where in the instance of, say,
dust they may have adopted a level that is 50 per cent of the national exposure standard.
If a site was to reach that particular trigger level, it is going to take immediate action
to implement new controls so that they do not reach the exposure level.
For controls to remain effective on site, they impinge on other factors within a site's
management system being effective.
That includes leadership, consultation, monitoring, and without that strong supporting controls
there is the possibility that a main control may not be effective.
We go to many operations that have similar systems, and the fact that those systems have
not been implemented and the leader has not insisted that those particular controls are
at a particular level means that we ultimately can end up with an ineffective system at the
end of the day.
In my role as the inspector of mines, I've seen a number of operations throughout New
South Wales.
During the course of that, I've seen some extremely inventive ways to manage health
hazards on site.
Some of those examples would consist of sprinkler systems on roads that are automatically controlled.
It eliminates the need for a water truck on site.
They are a bang-for-buck control at the end of the day.
Another example of a bang-for-buck health control is one of isolation.
Many of our operations have now moved their operator into a control room which is pressurised
and effectively isolates them from the health hazards of dust and noise.
This has been a massive improvement in our industry.
Health monitoring is certainly an effective tool with regards to establishing the effectiveness
of controls.
In some cases, it is a duty to complete health monitoring.
It is without doubt best practice within our industry, and it should be used as a tool
to establish whether people are being exposed to health hazards and how effective your controls
are.