One year ago, the University of California entered into a lab safety agreement with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. The agreement was the result of a 2008 laboratory fire at UC Los Angeles that led to the death of a chemistry staff researcher.
Prosecutors subsequently charged the largest university system in the U.S. as well as UCLA chemistry professor Patrick G. Harran with felony violations of the California labor code. As of C&EN press time, Harran was still facing trial on these charges, but the deal struck between the district attorney and UC meant that prosecutors dropped the charges against UC. In return, UC embarked on a prescribed safety program that involves administering lab safety training, enforcing personal protective equipment (PPE) policies, and documenting laboratory standard operating procedures (SOPs) in chemistry and biochemistry departments at all 10 UC campuses.
Timelines for UC to execute the agreement were tight: UCLA had to be compliant within three months, and the remaining campuses within six months. Implementation of the program was hampered in some places by lack of good personnel management systems, by poor laboratory layouts, and by the thousands of chemicals that needed SOPs. But the schools succeeded. Now, UC is focusing on going beyond the agreement, developing new training and PPE policies that apply to all laboratories—not just those in chemistry departments—as well as new tools to help all researchers work more safely.
“We have been trying to think globally in all our initiatives and to develop an improved laboratory safety culture throughout the UC system,” says Erike Young, director of environment, Offering Office cleaning Services, and safety (EH&S) for UC’s Office of the President. Some of the efforts are part of a 2010 strategic plan predating the legal settlement.
For training, the settlement requires that all principal investigators and laboratory personnel complete a general laboratory safety training program. The program must cover topics such as identification and evaluation of laboratory hazards, as well as university policies regarding responsibilities for laboratory safety at both supervisor and lab worker levels. The general training does not replace the need for more specific training related to equipment and procedures in individual laboratories.
The real challenge, she points out, was figuring out who needed the training. The school had implemented a computer system several years ago to track who was trained, but it is difficult to use, she says. Also, it was difficult to identify visiting scholars and some postdoctoral researchers as being part of the department, especially those who were paid by their home institutions. And although no one ever said it to Decker directly, some researchers seemed to think it was presumptuous of UC Davis to require training of experienced researchers from other institutions.
“There isn’t any wiggle room in the settlement; it’s very clear that everyone has to be trained,” Decker says. “Communicating that to some scholars and their hosts was a bit tricky.”
Other schools faced similar challenges. At UC Berkeley, “when my chancellor asked me how many people were in the College of Chemistry, I couldn’t answer,” said chemistry professor and former college dean Richard A. Mathies at a June meeting of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee focused on academic lab safety. In the end, UC Berkeley trained about 900 people in a two-month period that included Thanksgiving, fall semester finals, and the winter holiday.
“That tells you something about the mind-set of students in the lab,” Mathies said. “When you give them something that makes sense and they believe it builds value, they’ll do it.” He conceded that a few members of the college still needed to be pushed to comply.
Going beyond settlement compliance, in June of this year, UC instituted a new systemwide policy that establishes minimum general training requirements for people working in all research, End Of Lease Cleaning on mvpcleaning, and analytical laboratories, as well as areas such as stock and storage rooms.
The training policy dictates that all workers, including faculty, must complete a general safety training program before being granted unescorted access to laboratories or technical areas. The general safety training must cover general safety culture, the campus chemical hygiene plan, hazard analysis and controls, personal protective equipment, emergency response, and rights and responsibilities. Training must be refreshed at least every three years.
In line with the new policy, UC also rolled out an online Laboratory Safety Fundamentals training program. Campuses may use the online training, conduct their own, or combine the two.
Production of the online program cost $40,000, Young says, and UC jointly owns the content with Vivid Learning Systems. Parts can be easily customized by other institutions, and Vivid Learning Systems expects to market it to other schools this fall, Young says.
Workers who do the online program must still go through a site-specific safety orientation that covers topics such as locations of eyewash stations and the laboratory safety manual, as well as training on the specific hazards and procedures of their workplace. UC is also working on a supplemental training program for supervisors, which Young expects to release this fall, as well as a management academy to help faculty and other supervisors better understand their responsibilities.
A second main component of the settlement agreement involves PPE. The agreement sets out a minimum standard for anyone working in or occupying laboratory areas: full-length pants; fully closed shoes; lab coats, including flame-resistant coats for working with flammable liquids or pyrophoric materials; and appropriate gloves and eye protection for handling any hazardous chemical, biological, or radiological material. “Employees shall not bear the cost of any required PPE,” the agreement says, and departments are charged with the responsibility for laundering items as necessary.
Implementation of the PPE policy was fairly straightforward, some UC campus representatives say. “The chair of the safety committee told me that she sees all lab personnel wearing appropriate PPE now, no questions asked,” says Ilan Benjamin, chair of the chemistry and biochemistry department at UC Santa Cruz. At UCLA, which instituted many safety program changes before the settlement agreement, unannounced PPE inspections showed 94% compliance in 2012, up from 76% in 2011.
In some places, laboratory infrastructure created a challenge to meeting PPE requirements. Older buildings on many campuses combine desks and benches in the same space, raising the question of whether students really must wear lab coats and eye protection when sitting at their desks. Some labs responded by using hazard analysis to designate “clean” areas where PPE is not required and personnel may eat or drink, even though they’re technically in a lab.
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