WPAC Report Keeping accountable WPAC commits to further safety improvements By Gord Murray, WPAC executive director he Wood Pellet Association of Canada and our members are committed to making consistent, measurable progress on safety performance. We believe that all injuries and oc-cupational illnesses are preventable, and are committed to a goal of zero for all of them. WPAC SAFETY COMMITTEE UPDATE T WPAC’s Safety Committee has completed its 2018 Work Plan. As in past years, we are publishing the Work Plan as a means of being held publicly accountable for our performance. The Safety Committee’s current year focus areas include: • Process safety management: Delivering two PSM training workshops. • Silo fires: Developing risk assessment tools and holding a training workshop. • Plant operator training and use of alarms: Developing a training program and operator assessment procedure. • Combustible dust management in raw material storage ar-eas: Developing best practices documents and holding a refresher workshop. • Combustible gas and confined space entry: Developing best practices documents and holding a training work-shop. • Annual plant safety drills: Identifying and holding key safety drills. • Safety forum: Planning and holding a multi-sector safety forum in Prince George in June. • Incident reporting: Continuing to record incident data and near misses and analyzing such data to identify and correct trends. • Communications: Holding monthly safety committee meetings to monitor progress on the 2018 Work Plan. Meeting regularly with government safety regulators. Be-ginning a safety collaboration with the European Pellet Council. The Safety Committee’s practice is to hold a one-hour con-ference call on the second Wednesday of each month. The agen-da for each call includes: (1) reviewing progress by committee members on action items agreed to on the previous conference call, (2) bringing forward new tasks from the annual work plan, (3) reviewing any incidents which may have occurred since the previous call, and (4) one committee member sharing a safety tip from that member’s own operations. Committee members are disciplined about following the agenda and there is no time wasted. Each call ends in precisely one hour. Safety Committee members include: • Scott Bax, Pinnacle Renewable Energy (Chair) • Gordon Murray, WPAC (Secretary) • John Arsenault, QWEB • Sheldon Wheeler, Canfor • Kevin Erikson, Caribou Biomass • Matthew Franks, Canfor • Corey Gardiner, Aon Reed Stenhouse • Brian Letkemann, Tolko Industries • Darren Marutt, Pacific BioEnergy • Staffan Melin, WPAC • Dustin Meierhofer, BCFSC MARCH/APRIL 2018 8 Canadian BIOMASS
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