Category Archives: Health & Safety

The helicopter’s wake whips at the April alpine meadow as two paramedics are hoisted to the ground. A logging foreman waves them over and points to a body visible at the bottom of a steep rocky hill. …These are members of Technical Evacuation Advanced Aero Medical, or TEAAM, and by scaling down the hill to bring a high level of medical care to their patient they have done what no other paramedics in British Columbia can do. Under the current model BC Ambulance Service, or BCAS, paramedics are banned from putting themselves in dangerous situations and work with search and rescue teams to transfer patients from hazardous spaces into paramedic care. But search and rescue teams rarely have advanced medical caregivers at their disposal; and neither organization is mandated to answer calls for injured workers in remote job sites in BC.

NANAIMO — A new study hopes to save lives from workplace violence, sparked by a tragic shooting in Nanaimo four years ago. The study from the Red Shirt Foundation, formed after the shooting death of Michael Lunn and and Fred McEachern at the Western Forest Products mill, spoke to nearly 400 lumber industry workers to learn how to best avoid future violent situations. …The report showed sawmills in Canada and particularly B.C. are under a significant amount of time and financial stress and there’s very little job security, leading to pressure and heightened emotions. Nearly all employees are men with over half of them ages 50 and up. Jacques said many worked side-by-side for most of their career, creating strong bonds but also possibly fierce bitterness given the stressful situations. …“It leads to a lot of depression, missed days of work, drug issues and domestic violence,” Jacques said of the strain lumber employees are under.

Mill workers see workplace violence, but are afraid to report it, says a Red Shirt Foundation report. The foundation formed following a Nanaimo Western Forest Products mill shooting in April 2014, when Michael Lunn and Fred McEachern died and Tony Sudar and Earl Kelly were injured. The foundation was named to honour Lunn’s love of red shirts. Together with Western Forest Products, United Steelworkers union and WorkSafe B.C., the foundation funded the Workplace Violence in Sawmills in B.C., Canada report. According to the report, common articulations of workplace violence include verbal abuse, swearing, bullying and demeaning and discriminatory actions. …Among the report’s recommendations are establishment of a zero-tolerance policy on workplace violence, with education.

Six bridges with structural safety issues were found after an audit of the Bulkley Timber Supply Area (TSA). Four bridges west of Smithers and two in the north section of the TSA have serious issues. These are on forest service roads (FSR) in the wilderness not recommended for travel to the general public, but are used especially in the summer by wilderness seekers. Bridge problems included rotten, broken or missing components, or abutment erosion. A total of 26 bridges were examined. “The number of issues with roads and bridges identified in this audit is concerning,” said Chris Mosher, director of audits for the Forest Practices Board (FPB), in a media release. ”We are also concerned that we continue to see issues with fire hazard assessments, as we have warned licensees that this is a legal requirement that we check in our audits.”

Multiple safety concerns have been identified by B.C.’s Forest Practices Board on forestry roads and bridges in northwestern B.C., including unsafe river crossings and poor maintenance that caused a landslide. Director of audits Chris Mosher said the findings were “concerning” and the number of issues identified was unusual, though not unheard of, in the history of the board’s randomly selected audits of forest areas. The two-year audit focused on the Bulkley Timber Supply Area, which is managed by the government-run B.C. Timber Sales (BCTS). …Among the problems were six bridges with structural safety issues, poor culvert installation and road maintenance that “was not up to current standards.” …The audit also found companies operating in the region were not properly conducting fire hazard assessments after logging an area.

RCMP officers who risked their lives during the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire did not have proper masks to protect them as smoke from forest fires and hundreds of burning buildings choked the city. The RCMP acknowledged the problem in a wildfire review, obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act. …RCMP officers complained to the association they didn’t have fitted masks while directing traffic through smoke so thick it turned night into day, or when they went door to door ushering residents out of burning neighbourhoods. Instead, Wood Buffalo RCMP detachment officers had “paper filter” masks, association spokesperson Terry McKee said. …The review, titled K Division Fort McMurray Fire Response 2016 Best Practices and Lessons Learned, said N95 respirators should have been replaced by 3M half-face respirators that “provide a higher level of protection.”

Domtar is spending $3.5 million on equipment to reduce dust and smoke and eliminate hazardous chemicals. The mill’s environment manager, Kristin Dangelmaier… detailing two projects slated for May. …“This spring, I’m very happy to announce we are investing an additional $1 million on our chemical recovery boiler electro-static precipitator to achieve additional improvements above and beyond what would be required by our permit,” she said. …The second expenditure— at a cost of $2.5 million — is a scrubber to treat air emissions from the bleach plant area. The replacement scrubber, which will be bigger and better than the current one, will treat more emissions and eliminate the use of sulphur dioxide on site, which Dangelmaier called the “most hazardous chemical” at the mill. The material was previously “consumed in the process,” she said.

A new not-for-profit society is hoping to fill some service gaps in the emergency medical services field in British Columbia. According to the organization’s website, Technical Evacuation Advanced Aero Medical (TEAAM) is a group of paramedics and physicians dedicated to providing advanced life support (ALS) medical care in remote, difficult to access locations. …About two weeks after they decided to form the organization, the founders came across BC Forest Safety Ombudsman Roger Harris’s report… calling on the government… to make changes. “It basically laid out exactly what we were building,” said Randell. “For example, if we pulled up to a remote logging site where an air ambulance couldn’t land… we could take the patient out of that entrapment and provide medical care and then hoist them up into the aircraft.”

The District of Sparwood is investing $50,000 into emergency planning after last year’s historic wildfire season. Director of Corporate Services Michelle Martineau says they are looking to hire a consultant to develop hazard specific plans for the community. She says they want to have the plan updated ahead of the 2019 fire season. “Each event that happens, you don’t necessarily follow the same steps. So this ensures that we respond quickly and efficiently to mitigate any damages that could be done,” Martineau says. “If there’s a wildfire, then we just pull that plan and we know what steps to follow for that type of event.” Martineau says the timing of this work couldn’t be better.

As the weather starts to warm up, people across the Interior Health region are spending more time outdoors. This can mean an uptick in tick bites. Ticks are small bugs, about the size of a sesame seed, which feed on the blood of humans and animals –and, sometimes, transmit diseases. Ticks are prevalent throughout the Interior and are typically found in tall grass and wooded areas. Signs of many tick-borne infections can be quite similar and include fever, headache, muscle pain, and rash. …Ixodes ticks are the species that transmit Lyme disease. They are more common throughout coastal B.C. but may be present in some Interior Health areas. While less than one per cent of Ixodes in B.C. carry Lyme disease, it is important to recognize the symptoms. 

WorkSafe B.C. has fined Nanaimo Forest Products following an investigation into the death of an employee that occurred at its Harmac Pacific mill in 2016. Chris Fletcher, a Harmac Pacific employee who was 37 at the time of his accident in March 2016, was fatally injured when a wood chip pile he was standing on gave way underneath him. WorkSafe B.C. made public its findings from its investigation in the March/April issue of its trade magazine WorkSafe. …According to the article, the company had not conducted a risk assessment or developed safe work procedures for the area. …Grant Brebber, Nanaimo Forest Products administration manager, said the company has addressed the issues described in the report.