Plant Safety in Quarries

Worksafe Victoria’s Manager – Earth Resources, ROB KELLY reports on a review conducted on plant safety in quarries.

WORKSAFE Victoria conducted a review of all quarry inspections performed between July 2012 and January 2013 in order to attain a picture of quarry safety issues across the industry. Th is resulted in the following findings:

• 124 quarries were visited;
• 37 of these visits resulted in compliance notices being issued;
• A total of 100 notices were issued (81 improvement notices, 1 prohibition notice and 18 dangerous goods improvement notices);
• 15 voluntary compliance actions were taken.

Following on from the WorkSafe article titled ‘Dangerous machines endanger lives’ in the last edition of Sand & Stone, the findings of this review identified over 50 per cent of all notices were related to plant, especially inadequate guarding.

Of the 99 improvement notices issued (including dangerous goods), 52 per cent were related to plant – both mobile and fixed. Of these, 20 related to plant guarding. Th is represents 21 per cent of the total improvement notices served.

Typical problems found with guarding were:

• Inadequate guarding – guarding did not prevent body access to moving parts;
• Unguarded moving plant – unguarded drive couplings and remote plant which could still be accessed while operating;
• Damaged guarding; and
• Guarding not replaced after cleaning and maintenance activities.

I presented this latest quarry review to the Earth Resources Tripartite Safety Forum with the emphasise and need for industry to focus on improving plant safety. He also advised that WorkSafe Inspectors will continue to focus attention on plant safety to ensure risks are controlled. Other key issues identified from this review were as follows:

• Dangerous Goods – Explosives: Notices included inadequate signage, non-compliant explosives transport, the presence of metal surfaces within the explosive magazines, the presence of combustible material within the magazine bunded area, inadequate earth stake and lack of explosives manifest.
• Dangerous Goods – Storage: Notices issued mainly related to the storage of oxygen and acetylene tanks.
• Falls from Height: These notices were mainly related to inadequate or absence of batter crest protection within the quarry. Also, several open silo and bin entry accesses were found.

You can find the Code of Practice for Plant on the WorkSafe Victoria website, which will assist you in understanding the plant guarding requirements and also gives examples of guard designs for typical plant

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