Farm silo hazard alert isn’t enough says union

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Ministry’s of Labour’s recently released alert on the hazards of farm silos isn’t enough to protect agricultural workers.

Stan Raper, agricultural worker co-ordinator with United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada, says what’s needed are confined space regulations for the agricultural sector under the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act. The regulations should be coupled with enforcement.

Raper says the union has asked for confined space regulations in response to the deaths of three workers in Drayton in August 2000 from a liquid manure storage tank accident.

If the labour ministry is serious about occupational health and safety in farming the minimum it should have is a regulation on confined spaces, rather than the guidelines that the alert merely reiterates, he says. He notes that other industries, such as mining and construction, have confined space regulations.

“Workers continue to die in the agricultural sector because the guidelines don’t work,” Raper says.

The ministry issued the alert last month. It outlines the hazards of farm silos and suggests some precautions farmers can take to protect workers.

Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice president Mark Wales says regulations and enforcement aren’t needed “because there is not a problem.”

Dean Anderson, western region director for Workplace Safety and Prevention Services (formerly the Farm Safety Association), says across Canada the most recent statistics on deaths due to silo gas indicate there were seven fatalities from 1990 to 2005. That’s out of almost 1,800 farm-related fatalities for that time period.

The silo gas numbers are substantially smaller than the major causes of fatalities occurring in the farm workplace, he says. He points out that one quarter of all fatalities are tractor-related.

Wales says it’s very important the agricultural industry continues to make sure that everyone is trained and that everyone understands they shouldn’t enter silos. One of the problems is people don’t think before they go in and they don’t realize the dangers.

Another problem, Anderson says, is a lot of people don’t think about the hazard because they don’t hear about it.

Labour Ministry spokesman William Lin says they issued the alert to remind people of the hazards “and that employers must take every precaution reasonable in the circumstance to protect workers.” In October 2010 a farm worker died on an eastern Ontario dairy farm after he made an unplanned entry into a silo.

Wales says the key is people know they’re not supposed to enter silos “and even if they’re working around it they need to have proper safety equipment.”

Anderson says the ministry’s alert is helping to create awareness. But is it enough? “I don’t know what enough would be. Any fatality is too many,” he notes.

Silos keep oxygen out to reduce feed degradation. What makes them so dangerous is the lack of oxygen can immediately overcome a person causing injury or death. Along with the lack of oxygen, other hazardous gases, such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and methane, may be present.

Making an unplanned or inadvertent entry into a silo should never be done, the alert says. In fact, entering the silo should be avoided altogether and where possible workers should do the work from the outside. Entry should only be considered when it’s absolutely necessary.

Most silos, ranging in size from seven to 30 metres tall and six to 12 metres in diameter, are on dairy farms. But they could be used in other agricultural operations to store corn feed, haylage or other feed, the alert says. The feed is conveyed pneumatically and is blown through the top of the silo. Once it’s full the silo is sealed tight.

Some precautions employers can take include providing workers with training and supervision, developing written safe work procedures, posting signs warning people of the absence of oxygen, monitoring the atmosphere, providing properly fitted and self contained breathing equipment and safety harnesses attached to life lines and using mechanical ventilation. BF