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The NCCOS “S” Stands for Science:
And It Also Stands for SAFETY
NCCOS.
Make no mistake about it: The “S” in the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science acronym stands firmly for “Science”.
But in important ways, it stands also for Safety.
Safety is front and center in all of NCCOS's coastal science work. That's the case not only in the white-collar business offices, but also – and perhaps even more importantly – in the NCCOS laboratories, vessels, frequent field trips, and cruises conducted in a variety of scientific explorations.
“Without a world-class safety commitment for our scientists and partners, our world-class scientific research would be impossible,” says Gary C. Matlock, Ph.D., director of NCCOS. “It's an area in which we can never find ourselves fully satisfied, and certainly never complacent.”
Saying it is one thing, doing it an entirely different thing, and in that respect the NCCOS record of accomplishment speaks for itself: NCCOS over the past few years has significantly reduced recordable safety incidences. It's done so through an emphasis on accident prevention and avoidance, through carefully integrating and coordinating its safety training, and through an emphasis on comprehensive safety management among managers, supervisors, employees, and even contractors.
The NCCOS advances in safety performance come in the context of an increasingly diverse and complex research agenda. NCCOS scientists in the laboratory and in field research routinely encounter potential exposures to biotoxins produced from harmful algae. They regularly conduct their research in environments having toxic anthropogenic chemicals such as pesticides. And in the course of their work, they often encounter highly infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and invertebrate parasites – any one of which can pose risks not only to marine organisms and the ecosystem, but also to humans.
Adding to the challenges in maintaining – and enhancing – NCCOS's commitment to safety is one more important reality: NCCOS's workplace and field settings routinely involve not only federal workers and government scientists, but also contractors, volunteers, students, and research partner scientists from academic institutions.
The National Safety Council, an independent nongovernmental organization, has reported that the recordable incident rate among government workers fell from three per 200,000 hours worked in 1992 to 2.4 per 200,000 hours worked in 2002. For NOAA as a whole, the recordable incident rate of 0.49-1.71 per 200,000 hours worked in 2002 is substantially lower than the national average for all government workers.
Several NCCOS centers – for instance, the Beaufort, N.C., Charleston , S.C. , and Oxford , Md. , laboratories housing analytical, chemical, and biological research facilities — during 2002-2003 had an average reportable incident rate of 1.17 per 200,000 hours worked. The Charleston and Oxford laboratories during that period averaged zero reportable hours.
NCCOS's approach to safety and accident prevention mirrors the overall NOAA safety program through its emphasis on training, prevention, and inspection. During the first six months of fiscal year 2004, the National Ocean Service had a single recordable incident out of the 27 incidents reported by NOAA. This represents a NOAA recordable incident rate of 1.23 per 200,000 hours worked for NOAA overall, and a National Ocean Service recordable incident rate of 0.42 per 200,000 hours worked.
Those figures are impressive on their own, but their real importance may lie in their showing continued improvement from earlier years. It's a trend NCCOS managers are committed to sustaining.
Keep in mind that the very nature of NCCOS's diverse research activities poses significant safety challenges to NCCOS scientists and their research partners.
In laboratories across the country, NCCOS scientists deal with numerous potential work place hazards, including chemicals and reagents such as radioactive isotopes, acids, bases, and chemical solvents. NCCOS scientists and their collaborators working in these laboratory settings benefit from systematic training in the safety use, handling, and disposal of these chemicals and other hazards they may encounter daily in their work. That training includes familiarizing them with details of chemical-specific Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs), with chemical inventory and storage procedures, and with use and disposal best practices.
Through use of systematic Job Hazard Analysis (JHA), NCCOS scientists specifically come to understand and appreciate safety implications associated with the full range of their laboratory research activities. In addition, NCCOS scientists are trained in emergency preparedness, ergonomics, and development of safe work practices. Their emergency preparedness training ensures quick response in emergency situations, such as fires, spills and hurricanes, and also informs them in the event of “shelter in place” events.
The commitment to safe practices extends to paying attention to proper lifting techniques, bending and repetitive motion issues, and stains and sprains, the leading causes of modern day workplace injuries. Playing offense helps: identifying and implementing safe work practices, such as handling of sharp objects (needles and broken glassware); and hazard avoidance and injury prevention in the workplace.
Importantly, the NCCOS safety emphasis goes beyond the laboratory to fully encompass the agency's widespread field operations. Improving safety in its field work has involved specific policies, procedures, and availability of safety resources for field operations. NOAA's Management of Small Boats Program and individual Vessel Operations Manuals both contain safety components, and a new Small Boat Policy is being developed.
Improved safety training for field operations and increased availability of Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacons (EPIRBs), first aid kits, and spill control kits go with the researchers into the field, and larger boats are equipped with Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) for field work.
NCCOS diving operations strictly follow NOAA's Dive Program, with its priority on diver safety. All NCCOS divers must pass an annual medical evaluation to see that they are dive-ready, and certification requirements for NCCOS divers are demanding. NCCOS dive equipment, maintained by the NOAA Dive Office, is standardized and maintained by specially trained personnel. NCCOS divers always have the option to decline to dive if they feel conditions are not suitable, and each NCCOS Divemaster is authorized to cease a dive operation at any time.
Taken together, NCCOS's safety “cornerstones” include familiarity with MSDSs, Job Hazard Analysis, and understanding of chemical inventories, emergency preparedness, ergonomics, and development of safe work practices.
These components comprise the foundation of NCCOS's overall safety program and help establish its organizational “safety culture”. The approach helps ensure NCCOS scientists – in activities ranging from SCUBA dives to safe boat handling and complex laboratory research – the kind of safe working environment they need to do their work.
In the fall of 2004, NOAA officially took notice, awarding NCCOS's Charleston-based Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research (CCEHBR) NOAA's “Best of the Best” Safety Award.
Nobody is suggesting a name change for NCCOS – from “Science” to “Safety”. But since its establishment in 1999 with a mission of supporting all NOAA scientific coastal mandates, neither is anyone suggesting that safety is subservient to NCCOS's overall commitment to world-class coastal science. Its safety culture in fact is as broad and sweeping as the ecological, microbiological, analytical chemistry, histopathological, molecular biology, and toxicology research it undertakes, and as sweeping as the laboratories, research vessels, and aircraft it relies on to do its work.
That's a mouthful for sure. But next time you see the acronym “NCCOS”, know that the S in its name stands for Science. But be certain too that behind that name lies also an abiding commitment to safety.
It's not NCCOS's second nature. It's its first.
