Talking with a colleague the other day, the general question of how many chemical spills routinely occur in laboratories came up. This is in the context of deciding how to plan for response to these spills. In order to put some fact into our speculation, I thought I would ask the list to send me the following information: 1. The number of labs included in the statistics below (e.g. the UVM campus as a whole covers 500 labs)? 2. How often does a minor spill occur (i.e. one that interrupts work, but is handled by the person who spilled it)? 3. How often does a bigger spill occur (i.e. one that is handled by staff internal to the organization, but not the person who spilled it)? 4. How often does a significant spill occur (i.e. one that requires external assistance in assessment and clean up)? If you could send me gut level responses to these 4 questions, I will compile the information into anonymous statistics and share it with this list. Thanks for any help. - Ralph Ralph Stuart, CIH Environmental Safety Manager University of Vermont Environmental Safety Facility 667 Spear St. Burlington, VT 05405 rstuart**At_Symbol_Here**uvm.edu fax: (802)656-8682
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