Okaloosa County BOCC — June 2, 2015 — County safety manual: permit-required confined space program — reading text

Okaloosa County Safety Manual Revision: 03-04-2008 PERMIT REQUIRED CONFINED SPACE PROGRAM 1. PURPOSE The purpose of this policy is to establish mandatory practices and procedures for entry and working in confined space areas. All employees subject to work around confined spaces must understand the seriousness and potential hazards that confined spaces present, up to and including fatal. Employees must read and understand this policy before any work can be performed around or within confined spaces. 2. DEFINITIONS The following words and terms shall have the following meaning, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. 2.1. Acceptable Entry Conditions means those conditions that must exist in a permit space to allow entry and to ensure that employees involved with a permit-required confined space entry can safely enter into and work within the space. 2.2. Attendant means an individual with no other duties except assigned to remain immediately outside the entrance to the confined space and who may render assistance as needed to employees inside the space. 2.3. Authorized Entrant means an employee who is authorized by the employer to enter a permit space. 2.4. Blanking Or Blinding means the absolute closure of a pipe, line or duct by the fastening of a solid plate (such as a spectacle blind or a skillet blind) that completely covers the bore and that is capable of withstanding the maximum pressure of the pipe, line, or duct with no leakage beyond the plate. 2.5. Confined Space means any space not intended for continuous employee occupancy, having a limited means of egress, and which is also large enough and so configured that an employee can bodily enter and perform assigned work. 2.6. Engulfment means the surrounding and effective capture of a person by finely divided (flammable) solid substance that can be aspirated to cause death by filling or plugging the respiratory system or that can exert enough force on the body to cause death by strangulation, constriction, or crushing. 2.7. Entrant means any employee who enters a confined space. 37  Okaloosa County Safety Manual Revision: 03-04-2008 2.8. Entry means the action by which any part of a person passing through an opening into a permit required confined space. Entry includes subsequent work activities in that space and is considered to have occurred as soon as any part of the entrant's body breaks the plane of an opening into the space. 2.9. Entry Permit means a written or printed document that is provided by the employer to allow and control entry into a permit space. 2.10. Entry Supervisor means the person (such as the superintendent, foreman, or crew chief) responsible for determining if acceptable entry conditions are present at a permit space where entry is planned, for authorizing entry and overseeing entry operations, and for terminating entry as required by this policy. Note: an entry supervisor also may serve as an attendant or as an authorized entrant, as long as that person is trained and equipped as required by this policy for each role he or she fills. Also, the duties of entry supervisor may be passed from one individual to another during the course of an entry operation. 2.11. Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupter means a device whose function is to interrupt the electric circuit to the load when a fault current to ground exceeds a predetermined value that is less than that required to operate the overcurrent protective device of the supply current. 2.12. Hazardous Atmosphere means an atmosphere that may be expose employees to the risk of death, incapacitation, impairment of ability to self- rescue (that is, escape unaided from a permit space), injury or acute illness from one or more of the following causes: ▪ A flammable gas, vapor, or mist in excess of 10% of its lower flammable limit (LFL); ▪ Airborne combustible dust at a concentration that meets or exceeds its LFL; Note: This concentration may be approximated as a condition in which the dust obscures vision at a distance of five feet (1.52m) or less. ▪ An oxygen deficient atmosphere containing less than 19.5% oxygen by volume or an oxygen enriched atmosphere containing more than 23.5% oxygen by volume; ▪ An atmosphere concentration of any substance for which a dose or a permissible exposure limit is published in 29 CFR 1910 Subpart G, Occupational Health and Environmental Control, or in Subpart Z, Toxic and Hazardous Substances, of this part and which could result in employee exposure in excess of its dose or permissible exposure limit; Note: An atmospheric concentration of any substance that is not capable of causing death, incapacitation, impairment of ability to self-rescue, injury, or acute illness due to its health effects is not covered by this provision. 38  Okaloosa County Safety Manual Revision: 03-04-2008 ▪ Any other atmospheric condition that is immediately dangerous to life or heath. 2.13. HotWork Permit means the employer's written authorization to perform operations (for example, riveting, welding, cutting, burning, and heating) capable of providing a source of ignition. 2.14. Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health (IDLH) means any condition that poses an immediate or delayed threat to life, or that would cause irreversible adverse health effects or that would interfere with an individual's ability to escape unaided from a permit space. 2.15. Immediate Severe Health Effects means that an acute clinical sign of serious, exposure reaction is manifested within 72 hours of exposure. 2.16. Isolation means the process by which a permit space is removed from service and completely protected against the release of energy and materials into the space by such means as blanking or blinding; misaligning or removing sections of lines, pipes, or ducts; a double block and bleed system; lockout or tagout of all sources of energy; or blocking or disconnecting all mechanical linkages. 2.17. Lockout or Tagging means placing locks or tags on the energy isolating device in accordance with this standard. Tags shall indicate that the energy isolating device shall not be operated until the removal of the tag or lock. 2.18. Non-Permit Confined Space means a confined space that does not contain or, with respect to atmospheric hazards, have the potential to contain any hazard capable of causing death or serious physical harm. 2.19. Oxygen Deficient Atmosphere means an atmosphere containing less than 19.5 percent oxygen by volume. 2.20. Oxygen Enriched Atmosphere means an atmosphere containing more than 23.5% percent oxygen by volume. 2.21. Permit-Required Confined Space (permit space) means a confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics: ▪ Contains or has a potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere; ▪ Contains a material that has the potential for engulfing an entrant; ▪ Has an internal configuration such that an entrant could be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross-section; or ▪ Contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard. 2.22. Prohibited Condition means any condition in a permit space that is not allowed by the permit during the period when entry is authorized. 39  Okaloosa County Safety Manual Revision: 03-04-2008 2.23. Qualified Person means a person who is trained to recognize the hazard(s) of the confined space and how to evaluate those anticipated hazards and shall be capable of specifying necessary control measures to assure worker safety. The employer may designate an employee as employer representative for the purpose of assuring safe confined space entry procedures and practices at a specific site. The qualified person may also be the entrant. 2.24. Rescue Team means those persons whom the employer has designated prior to any confined space entry to perform rescues from confined spaces. A rescue team may consist of outside emergence personnel, provided the training requirements of this standard have been met. (i.e. Okaloosa County Fire). 2.25. Retrieval System means the equipment (including a retrieval line, chest or full- body harness, wristlets, if appropriate, and a lifting device or anchor) used for non-entry rescue of persons from permit spaces. A line or rope will be secured at one end to a worker's chest or body harness, or wristlets and the other end secured to anchor point or lifting device located outside the entry portal. The anchor point shall not be a motor vehicle. Retrieval lines must be of sufficient strength to remove an entrant when necessary. 2.26. Zero Mechanical State means that the mechanical potential energy of all portions of the machine or equipment is set so that the opening of the pipe(s), tube(s), hose(s), or actuation of any valve, lever, or button, will not produce a movement which could cause injury. 3. GENERAL INFORMATION 3.1. Confined Space Defined 3.2. A confined space is: ▪ large enough and so configured that an employee can bodily enter and perform assigned work, and, ▪ having limited means of entry and egress, and, ▪ is not designed for continuous employee occupancy. 3.3. Confined spaces generally include by are not limited to the following: Storage tanks Boilers Sewers Digesters Wet wells Dry Wells Manholes Open Top Pits Underground Vaults Tunnels Lagoons Ventilation or Exhaust Ducts Vats and Vessels that are more than four feet in depth and meet the above criteria. 3.4. Confined spaces located throughout the Okaloosa County area are identified into two categories; Permit Required Confined Spaces and Non-permit Required Confined Spaces. 40  Okaloosa County Safety Manual Revision: 03-04-2008 3.5. Permit Required Confined Spaces: 3.6. Are confined spaces that: