Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:55:09 -0400
Reply-To: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
Sender: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
From: Kim Auletta <kauletta**At_Symbol_Here**NOTES.CC.SUNYSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: Chemical Safety headlines summary, first 6 months
In-Reply-To: <5CDB77D8-B79D-4733-96D7-4218190BFEAA**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org>


Ralph - thanks for doing this! I find it very useful & have sent out 
"lessons learned" to my growing local HS science teacher list & our labs 
on campus. I think maybe our Journalism school could use it too - some of 
the details have been sketchy & perhaps a bit inaccurate!

Kim Auletta
Lab Safety Specialist
EH&S    Z=6200
Stony Brook University
kauletta**At_Symbol_Here**notes.cc.sunysb.edu
631-632-3032
EH&S Web site: http://www.stonybrook.edu/ehs/lab/

Remember to wash your hands!


From:
"Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety" 

To:
DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU
Date:
07/26/2010 08:47 AM
Subject:
[DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines summary, first 6 months
Sent by:
DCHAS-L Discussion List 


Today, the DCHAS pinboard incident list at 
http://www.pinboard.in/dchas 
reached 700 incidents since February 1. These events are primarily 
gathered from a daily google search of news headlines around the world on 
selected keywords. I thought I would give a quick summary of the types of 
events recorded in this way over 6 months. 

Disclaimer: I consider this system of collecting information anecdotal 
rather than systematically collected data, so the raw data has not 
reviewed for consistency and rounding errors have been allowed to stand. 

With that in mind, of the 700 total events since February 1:
257 (37%)  are in the industrial sector 
121 (17%) are transportation events
70 (10%) are lab events
79 (11%) are household events 
72 (10%) are illegal events (interestingly, only about half of the 
reported illegal events are related to meth labs)

Of these events, 33 (5%) resulted in deaths and 156 (22%) resulted in 
injuries.

I last gave one of these summaries at the end of April. The primary 
difference I see between the first three months and the second three 
months is in terms of frequency as the number of events reported has risen 
from about 3.5 a day to 4 a day. It appears that this is driven primarily 
by an increase in transportation events. I suspect that this related to 
increased truck traffic in the summer.

People can use the tagging system at the URL mentioned above to further 
explore this data. If you'd like the information in Excel format so that 
you can do your own exploration of it, please let me know.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart
Environmental Safety Manager
University of Vermont

rstuart**At_Symbol_Here**uvm.edu

Ralph - thanks for doing this! I find it very useful & have sent out "lessons learned" to my growing local HS science teacher list & our labs on campus. I think maybe our Journalism school could use it too - some of the details have been sketchy & perhaps a bit inaccurate!

Kim Auletta
Lab Safety Specialist
EH&S    Z=6200
Stony Brook University
kauletta**At_Symbol_Here**notes.cc.sunysb.edu
631-632-3032
EH&S Web site:
http://www.stonybrook.edu/ehs/lab/

Remember to wash your hands!


From: "Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety" <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU
Date: 07/26/2010 08:47 AM
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines summary, first 6 months
Sent by: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>



Today, the DCHAS pinboard incident list at
http://www.pinboard.in/dchas
reached 700 incidents since February 1. These events are primarily gathered from a daily google search of news headlines around the world on selected keywords. I thought I would give a quick summary of the types of events recorded in this way over 6 months.

Disclaimer: I consider this system of collecting information anecdotal rather than systematically collected data, so the raw data has not reviewed for consistency and rounding errors have been allowed to stand.

With that in mind, of the 700 total events since February 1:
257 (37%)  are in the industrial sector
121 (17%) are transportation events
70 (10%) are lab events
79 (11%) are household events
72 (10%) are illegal events (interestingly, only about half of the reported illegal events are related to meth labs)

Of these events, 33 (5%) resulted in deaths and 156 (22%) resulted in injuries.

I last gave one of these summaries at the end of April. The primary difference I see between the first three months and the second three months is in terms of frequency as the number of events reported has risen from about 3.5 a day to 4 a day. It appears that this is driven primarily by an increase in transportation events. I suspect that this related to increased truck traffic in the summer.

People can use the tagging system at the URL mentioned above to further explore this data. If you'd like the information in Excel format so that you can do your own exploration of it, please let me know.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart
Environmental Safety Manager
University of Vermont

rstuart**At_Symbol_Here**uvm.edu

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