Don’t ignore your gut Take steps to ensure complacency doesn’t affect the safety of your operation BIOMASS CANADIAN Volume 19 No. 3 Editor -Maria Church (226) 931-1396 [email protected] Associate Editor -Ellen Cools (416) 510-6766 [email protected] Contributors -Gordon Murray, Guillaume Roy, Peter Diek-meyer, Carsten Huljus. Account Coordinator -Stephanie DeFields Ph: (519) 429-5196 [email protected] National Sales Manager -Ross Anderson (on leave) A gut feeling is hard to define and easy to ignore. I would describe it as the twinge in my stomach when I do something risky. I most acutely felt it as I was donning a harness and bungee cord about to jump off a bridge 50 metres above a river in Whistler, B.C. A reasonable person might think twice about the expe-rience. My 18-year-old self chose the thrill over reason. In our day to day, the gut feeling is much less obvi-ous, but no less present. For those in trades or operation-al roles, working with heavy machinery or dangerous substances, the gut feeling naturally dulls with experi-ence. But it’s still there. Spencer Beach, a former flooring installer from Ed-monton, ignored his gut feeling once and has since committed his life to convincing others to listen to it. Beach was the keynote speaker at the Wood Products Safety Summit (coverage on page 28), put on by the Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC) and Ca-nadian Biomass in Prince George in June. I was in the audience this year and con-sider myself lucky to have heard Beach speak. You know a message is hitting home when a room of nearly 100 people is dead silent as a speaker tells a story. In 2003, Beach was removing the flooring from an under-construction home with a flammable chemical when a flash fire engulfed the house. The chem-ical fire reached 1,500 degrees, burning 90 per cent of his body in third-and fourth-degree burns. Miraculously, Beach survived the in-cident. Months of painful recovery gave him time to reflect on where things went wrong, and how he could have avoided it. A big step was admitting he knew the chemical he was working with was unsafe. “How many of you have been in a situ-ation where you have the gut feeling, and you do nothing at all?” Beach asked the audience. “But I did what all strong, hard-working people do – I took that feeling and I pushed it deep down to where it can’t be heard. And I did nothing. I chose to die.” It’s a harsh, critical les-son for all machine opera-tors in the biomass indus-try. No pellet plant, biogas facility or wood chipping operation is immune from the complacency that leads to unsafe practices. The reality is our indus-try is in the business of com-bustible dust. And while in-dustry practices and technology solutions for explosion prevention and protection have advanced, there is still plenty to learn, and re-learn, to prevent future incidents. If you missed our Dust Safety Week 2019, which took place June 24-28 at www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca/dust-safety-week, I encourage you to check out the articles and talk to managers, col-leagues and employees about how your plant can step up its safety game. Don’t wait until an incident happens. Don’t ig-nore the gut feeling. Beach is bringing his story and message to WPAC’s AGM, taking place Sept. 22-25 in Ottawa. Find details at www.pellet.org/ wpac-agm. • National Sales Manager -Rebecca Lewis Ph: (519) 410-0332 [email protected] Quebec Sales -Josée Crevier Ph: (514) 425-0025 Fax: (514) 425-0068 [email protected] Western Sales Manager -Tim Shaddick [email protected] Ph: (604) 264-1158 Fax: (604) 264-1367 Media Designer -Alison Keba Circulation Manager -Jay Doshi [email protected] Ph: (416) 442-5600 ext. 5124 Group Publisher -Todd Humber [email protected] COO Scott Jamieson Canadian Biomass is published four times a year: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Published and printed by Annex Business Media. Publication Mail Agreement # 40065710 Printed in Canada ISSN 2290-3097 Subscription Rates: Canada -1 Yr $57.00; 2 Yr $102.00 Single Copy -$9.00 (Canadian prices do not include applicable taxes) USA – 1 Yr $93.50 US; Foreign – 1 Yr $106.00 US CIRCULATION [email protected] Tel: (416) 510-5109 Fax: (416) 510-6875 or (416) 442-2191 111 Gordon Baker Rd., Suite 400, Toronto, ON M2H 3R1 Annex Privacy Officer [email protected] Tel: 800-668-2374 Occasionally, Canadian Biomass magazine will mail information on behalf of industry-related groups whose products and services we believe may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive this information, please contact our circulation department in any of the four ways listed above. No part of the editorial content of this publication may be reprinted without the publisher’s written permission ©2019 Annex Business Media, All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions. All advertising is subject to the publisher’s approval. Such approval does not imply any endorsement of the products or services advertised. Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising that does not meet the standards of the publication. www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca 4 Canadian BIOMASS SUMMER 2019
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