Laboratory Space Managers in the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) Assess Hazards in Colleagues’ Laboratory Space

Summary

To help reduce safety hazards in laboratories in the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) in Richland, Washington, thirty five cognizant space managers (CSM’s) recently participated in a two-week exercise to evaluate each other’s laboratory space to determine if safety hazards existed. CSMs are full-time researchers, but because they are familiar with a certain lab space, they are assigned additional responsibility for mitigating hazards within that space. The exercise allowed each laboratory in EMSL to be evaluated from a fresh safety perspective. Checklists specific to the lab spaces were used by the guest CSMs to evaluate the condition of the space – for example, conditions related to adequacy of storage, proximity of chemicals, egress, fire protection and laser safety. A subsequent walk down was performed by the EMSL research operations manager and his team to verify that findings were valid, with all findings entered into the EMSL s Assessment Tracking System.