First Call Environmental always drives home the importance of getting a Safety Data Sheet for every incident. The SDS helps drive a lot of the decisions that will be made on the incident.
The biggest decision to make based on the hazards are what level Personal Protective Equipment to wear. PPE can be based on contact hazards or respiratory hazards.
There also is a level of critical decision making that must be done. PPE is selected not just based on the product involved, but what is happening to the product or the container that it is in.
FCE has a file for PPE in our internal files of common thread. That file has our PPE policy as well as compatibility charts and breakthrough time for all of our PPE that we supply. These are tools that help our supervisors and technicians in the field.
FCE also has a policy for detection and monitoring. The policy clearly defined all the tools that FCE provides our supervisors and technicians in the field to be able to clearly identify the hazards. We have a chemical identification kit and a four-gas air monitor.
Our detection and monitoring policy allows the supervisors and technicians in the field to be able to continuously monitor the hazards and threats of the product and the job to be able to determine if the crews should upgrade their PPE or downgrade their PPE. These decisions must be accompanied by documentation as well as pictures of detection equipment proving that there are no longer any hazards.
As a company, we are confident in providing the tools to the crews in the field to determine when to upgrade or downgrade.