HAZWOPER Safety and Health Program
The HAZWOPER standard requires each employer to develop and implement a written safety and health program for each of the three categories of hazardous waste sites before work begins.
Each hazardous waste site clean-up effort will require a site-specific Health and Safety Plan (HASP) headed by the site coordinator or the employer's representative.
The safety and health program identifies, evaluates, and controls safety and health hazards, and provides emergency response procedures for each hazardous waste site. An effective and comprehensive safety and health program is essential in reducing work-related injuries and illnesses and in maintaining a safe and healthful work environment.
The program describes the work policies, practices, and procedures, and includes the following topics:
- organizational structure
- comprehensive work plan
- site characterization and evaluation
- site-specific health and safety plan (HASP)
- safety and health training program
- medical surveillance program
- standard operating procedures
The written safety and health program must be periodically updated and made available to all affected employees, contractors, and subcontractors. Necessary coordination between the general program and site-specific activities also should be included in the program.
The employer also must inform contractors and subcontractors, or their representatives, of any identifiable safety and health hazards or potential fire or explosion hazards before they enter the worksite.
One site-specific safety and health program is acceptable if it covers all tasks, operations, and employers on the site, and if the employees are trained to use the plan. However, each contractor or subcontractor at the site must comply with HAZWOPER requirements.
In this module, we'll look at the first five elements of the safety and health program, and in the next module, we'll cover the final three elements. Although we'll address these elements as they apply to cleanup operations, remember, they should also be adapted for TSD facilities and other hazardous waste sites.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
3-1. Who must have access to the written safety and health program on a hazardous waste site?
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