According to inventor Donny Beaver, owner of Bellwood, PA-based safety company HalenHardy, some workers are prone to leap before they look, often throwing caution to the wind when it comes to performing dangerous jobs.
Beaver was the 2013 recipient of The Shale Gas Innovation & Commercialization Center's first annual Environmental Health and Safety Award. The prize will be awarded again in September, honoring a Pennsylvania-based company or individual whose invention makes the natural gas extraction process safer for humans or the environment. (Applications for this year's contest can be found online here. Applications are due on August 1.)
The award provides exposure for inventors looking to connect with companies and improve the safety of shale gas extraction. As Bill Hall, executive director of SGICC, puts it, there are always improvements to be made when it comes to industrial activity.
“Things can go awry,” he says, “causing problems that can create a negative public perception that could have been avoided if things had been more safe.”
Gas extraction can be dangerous for workers if wells explode, and for the environment if fracking fluids are released into groundwater.
“We think the industry is very important to Pennsylvania, and that safety is very important,” argues Hall. “If we had a series of explosions, people would be saying, 'Wait a minute I don't think this is so safe.'”
Though headlines are made when catastrophic accidents occur, there are also longterm health impacts of working in the industry that need to be addressed. Beaver won his award for the MASHH Mobile Air Shower, a device that removes dust particles from workers' garments in less than 30 seconds to help them avoid lung problems.
During the process of natural gas production, workers are often exposed to fine particles of dust as sand is rushed along on conveyor belts. The sand is then piped into the wells to fill fissures that are created in the gas removal process.
“They are using millions of pounds of sand in every well, and there are guys that are moving the stuff, standing right there next to it,” explains Beaver.
The lightest sand dust becomes airborne, landing on workers' clothes and being inhaled.
“The main danger is in the long term,” says Beaver. “Silicosis occurs when the sand particles get in your lungs. They are not degradable — it's like glass. If you breathed in sawdust or straw dust, the macrophages in the lungs would grab hold and start chewing it up or you'd hack it up; that's how biodegradables work.”
Unlike other organic compounds, sand can't be broken down in the lungs. When sand is inhaled, scar tissue forms around it. If too much scar tissue forms, lungs can stop functioning or it can lead to the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)-like symptoms.
Workers usually wear respirators to protect themselves when they work, but during breaks or when they prepare to leave the job site, cleaning dust off their uniforms is often an imprecise and arduous process, involving two workers vacuuming each other. According to Beaver, workers often take their respirators off while cleaning up, causing them to inhale dust.
HalenHardy’s air shower makes the process faster and easier. It shoots jets of air onto each worker and sucks airborne dust through a HEPA filter, trapping more dust particles than vacuuming would. The shower only requires one worker to operate and is more precise and efficient than a vacuum. In addition to saving lives, Beaver says his invention saves employers money, since the amount of time spent in the air shower is significantly less than would be spent vacuuming uniforms.
“It's a great problem to solve, and they've done a great job solving it,” says Hall, who was already looking forward to this year's award applicants.
Beaver was both excited and surprised that his company won the award. “When we entered last year, I felt like Forrest Gump,” he recalls. “Everyone else's invention looked like rocket science and ours is like a leaf blower and a vacuum cleaner!”
Some of the problems Beaver would like to see this year's applicants tackle include excessive noise and what to do with radioactive rocks when they are encountered. He would also like to see a device that could predict potential gas pump problems in advance.
According to Beaver, every problem has a solution.
“Our argument has been: You don't have to sacrifice health safety and the environment in the name of industrial activity. They can peacefully coexist, you just have to think it through thoroughly,” he asserts. “Unfortunately as much as we all want everything pristine, and would love to make everything as clean and pristine as possible, industrial lifestyles deliver the type of life we are accustomed to, and the level of comfort we enjoy — the question is at what cost. When worker health and safety is proactively woven into the fabric of a company’s culture, accidents decrease, worker morale and productivity rise and company profitability increases.”
Beaver's company is currently working on solving two other safety issues facing the oil and gas and other mobile industries: slip and fall accidents and limiting access to dangerous work areas.
The MudKill product line quickly removes mud and muck from workers’ boots, which reduces the possibility of slip and fall accidents, while the HeckOut QuickFold barricades are lightweight, portable and equipped with custom messaging that quickly limits pedestrian and worker access to dangers areas.
“We are going to make sure people go home from work healthy and happy,” says Beaver. “And people who go home healthy and happy are going to be better workers.”
Applications for this year's Environmental Health and Safety Award can be found online at www.sgicc.org/sgicc-ehs-application.html. Applications are due on August 1.