Breaking the Chain: Using risk assessment scores to prevent fishing vessel casualties.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Jerry Dzugan, executive director, Alaska Marine Safety Education Association.

Risk Management
Vessel casualties usually occur as a result of widely varying factors that may include crew fatigue, vessel maintenance and upgrade history, and fisheries management regime, along with many other issues.

Additionally, this industry includes hundreds of different types of fisheries and vessels. Some fishing vessels may fish only in the summer in southern coastal waters or in the winter in the Bering Sea. They may be single-handed operations or have a crew of well over 100 people. Therefore a “one-size-fits-all” risk management program will not be very effective.

The Alaska Marine Safety Education Association has identified eight areas that should be examined for every fishery:

• Casualty Data. Determine in what type of fisheries the fatalities, injuries, and vessel losses are occurring. The amount of effort and resources placed in managing risk should be proportional to the risk.
• Type of Fishery. A description of a fishery should include the typical number of crewmembers, length of trips, description of gear types, and how the product is stored and processed.
• Vessel Types and Hazards. Vessel size, age, layout, and how the gear is operated can indicate risks. If the vessel participates in other fisheries and changes fishing gear, there are implications for stability and other hazards. Fisheries that use power blocks and winches will have more crushing injuries, while hook-and-line fisheries will have more cut and puncture-type injuries.
• Environmental Hazards. The geographic location of a fishery, the season of the year, the distance offshore, remoteness from rescue resources, water temperature, seasonal storm patterns, and predictability all affect risk.
• Subjective Hazards. Issues such as operator and crew experience, fatigue, over- or under-capitalization, traditions, attitude, economics, culture, crew communication, and drug and/or alcohol use all affect risk and should be examined.

Salmon seining, such as in this picture taken in Sitka Sound, SE Alaska, usually takes place in areas close to where salmon are returning to their home streams. The vessel’s seine skiff pulls the net closed. Photo by Mr. Jerry Dzugan.

Stability
Casualty reports and statistics should demonstrate which fisheries are known to have more stability issues and determine the cause of stability problems in a fishery. Gear hang-ups, icing, down flooding, improper loading, heavy weather, and other factors may be problems in some fisheries, but not in others. Vessel size and stability requirements and enforcement will also be factors in assessing risk in a fishery.

Implementation
A basic risk assessment score sheet (see sidebar) filled out at the beginning of every season or trip can remind the operator of changing risk. One of the most useful aspects of this risk score sheet is that it makes the operator think about every aspect of the operation in a systemic way. In addition, it allows the operator to decrease overall risk by making changes in controllable areas.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/winter2010-11/.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.

Mark and Kelly Klinger troll for salmon in Salisbury Sound, SE Alaska. Many salmon boats are family-run fisheries, so children learn to fish and act safely on a vessel from a very young age. Photo by Ms. Deborah Mercy.

Integrated Safety is a risk reduction program—PART 2.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Alan Dujenski, of Alan R. Dujenski & Associates, Inc.

An Ongoing Process
You must continually evaluate the safety program, work environment, and employee training needs. The steps should look something like this:

• ensure all personnel receive training on the integrated safety program,
• create an “action team” to monitor the program and implement updates and any corrective actions,
• tap an “audit board” made up of a port captain, port engineer, and operations manager to review the action team’s efforts and provide the CEO an annual review of the past year’s injuries, mishaps, accidents, items of concern, and any recommendations for improvement.

What Is Safety?
Safety is defined as the state or condition of freedom from danger, risk, or injury. A misconception held by many in the maritime industry is that installing safety equipment makes an environment safe. Safety is not equipment—rather, it is a state.

Why Safety Programs Fail
Management is not fully committed. If a safety program does not get full backing from all levels of management, it will never achieve its full potential. Insincere attitude makes its way down to the workers.

The program is not a product of all levels of management and crew. If one of the management staff members or a safety manager or outside third party writes up a safety plan and gives it to the workers, it generally does not incorporate the practical applications the workers encounter, or it is written in such great detail that it is impractical to refer to on a regular basis.

Training programs don’t address applicable risk. At times companies send their personnel to courses required by a regulatory agency without analyzing the requirement or researching the course.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/winter2010-11/.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.

Integrated Safety is a risk reduction program—PART 1.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Alan Dujenski, of Alan R. Dujenski & Associates, Inc.

The Integrated Safety Process
An effective safety program must involve all levels of management and personnel in a combined effort to identify potential problem areas and resolve them before an incident occurs.

The ABCs of Accidents
Understand the basic elements of an accident: Statistics have shown that accidents are rarely the result of a single event.

Take fires for example, three things are needed to start a fire: an ignition source, fuel, and oxygen. To put out the fire, remove one of these elements. Most other accidents also generally have multiple elements. If you remove one or more of these elements, you minimize or eliminate the possibility of that accident occurring.

Additionally, accidents usually don’t happen without some forewarning. For most major accidents, there are usually about 10 minor accidents that preceded it. Early indications and corrective action can hopefully prevent the accident.

The Integrated Safety Action Plan
An integrated safety program is developed with input from management and employees.
To be successful this program must have top management, front-line management, and employees buying into and supporting the plan. First, identify problems or hazards. After the hazards are identified, collaborators work to identify ways to eliminate or mitigate the hazard. Failing that, they create a contingency plan.

Designing the Program
Run through an exercise of hazard identification and decide what to do with the issues. Then do the same thing with front-line managers (supervisors, masters, chief engineers), then the rest of the workforce. For these initial meetings it is usually best to use an outside facilitator.

You may need to call in a consultant to ensure you meet regulatory requirements. You will have an excellent foundation for the consultant to assist you in building a final plan that is usable and designed to fit your company.

Find out why safety programs fail in Part 2.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/winter2010-11/.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.

Interventions in the Interest of Safety-- PART 2

Training, research, and outreach in Maine’s commercial fishing industry.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Ms. Ann S.N. Backus, M.S., occupational safety instructor, Harvard School of Public Health.

Mandated Training Part 2
In a parallel effort to establish a more safety-savvy cadre of dive tenders for the hand-harvest industry (urchins, scallops, lobster), the DMR collaborated with the Maine Commercial Fishing Safety Council in 2009 to create a dive tender rule and a DMR online diving safety course for tenders.

Under the rule, those seeking a dive tender license must pass a test and present current first aid and CPR certifications. As of mid-June 2010, forty people had been issued dive tender licenses through this process.

In the most recent three years, there was a 19 percent incidence rate of diver deaths recorded in the USCG First District. With dive tenders now presumably alert to unsafe diving situations and able to recognize divers in distress, we hope to see a reduction in Maine’s contribution to this rate.

Research and Outreach
The Harvard Education and Resource Center (ERC) is currently one of the hubs for research and outreach activities that engage Maine’s fishing industry. In 1999 the Harvard ERC launched a lobsterman entanglement study along the Maine coast in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control/National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Alaska Field Station in Anchorage, Alaska.

Additionally, Mary Davis, Ph.D., of the Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, and Ann Backus, M.S., of Harvard collaborated on a study titled “Safety and Compliance in the Maine Commercial Fishing Industry” that was funded by NOAA and the Maine Sea Grant. This study investigated the current level of safety preparedness in the industry from the equipment and training perspectives.

Future Direction
Fishing safety is—and has to be—a joint effort of government, industry, and private players. I would like to acknowledge those mentioned here and all others who are participating in building an infrastructure that will drive and support a culture of safety in Maine.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/winter2010-11/

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.

Interventions in the Interest of Safety-- PART 1

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Ms. Ann S.N. Backus, M.S., occupational safety instructor, Harvard School of Public Health.

Maine’s Commercial Fishing Industry
Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated more than 233 million pounds of live fish landed in 2008 by Maine commercial fishermen included: the American lobster, accounting for 30 percent of the catch; the Atlantic herring for 28 percent; and the cultured Atlantic salmon for nine percent.

In terms of dollar value, the American lobster catch accounted for 68 percent of the $362 million industry in Maine in 2008, cultured Atlantic salmon accounted for 17 percent, and the value of the Atlantic herring catch was only two percent of the total catch.

High Dollar, High Risk
The average price per pound for lobster was at an all-time high of $4.43 in 2007 and has dropped each of the succeeding years in spite of (or perhaps because of) major increases in landings in 2008 and 2009.

Fatality rates in the lobster fishery are also of great concern. In terms of casualty data, from 1993 to 2010, according to U.S. Coast Guard First District statistics:

• 29 percent of the deaths were in the trawler industry,
• 24 percent were in the lobster fishery,
• 6.7 percent were divers.

If we look at deaths by fishery in the last three years we see that:

• 37 percent were trawler industry deaths,
• 11 percent were lobster fishery deaths,
• 19 percent were diver deaths.

Mandated Training
In 1995, the Maine DMR supported the apprentice license requirement and apprentice program that became effective in 1996. In November 2006, the Maine Commercial Fishing Safety Council recommended that fishing vessel drill conductor training be part of the apprentice program. Under this program, those wishing to become lobstermen must complete an apprenticeship that requires 1,000 hours of lobstering and complete an accepted Coast Guard fishing vessel drill conductor course and a first aid course. To date, almost 900 apprentices have completed the program.

PICTURED: John McMillan and

Coast Guard commercial fishing safety examiner Paul Smith-Valley teach escape techniques using an egress trainer at the 2010 Fishermen’s Forum, Rockport, Maine. Photo courtesy of Ms. Ann Backus.
In Part 2 we will find out more about Maine’s commercial fishing industry.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/winter2010-11/

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.