Exerpt from the latest Piling Canada Magazine: Fraser River Pile & Dredge (GP) Inc. (FRPD) is Canada’s largest marine construction and dredging contractor, with operations mainly in Western Canada and the Northwest Territories. J.F. Landry, the company’s Environmental Health and Safety Manager, says that ensuring a safe workplace is paramount to the company’s health and safety initiative. “We do many things to mitigate hazards,” said Landry. “All our workers are unionized, and come directly from the Hall, and we know the quality of training that comes out of there. We then complement that training with further in-board training. Attached to that is the good blend of a team, the right guys at the right job at the right location. A young foreman with four years of experience might be partnered with a seasoned veteran with 18 years experience, one newbie and a couple of workers with 12 years on the jobs. If you have an experienced foreman with 18 years on the job, but assign him four guys with one year of experience, that is not a good blend. We assign an experience rating to each crew. That helps us.” FRPD also works closely with their clients to perform a strong Project hazard assessment. “We have a very strong safety department,” said Landry. “It is rare to see four dedicated health safety and environmental professionals to support crew in the field, but it’s a top-down directive; without meaningful senior management support, we wouldn’t be able to do our job. We have decided as an organization that, ‘Fraser River Pile & Dredge sets the standard.’” To that end, FRPD goes around the world searching for a safer way. “To be honest, when it comes to marine construction and pile driving, what is required in B.C. is minimal,” said Landry. “We look at legal requirements in the U.S., UK, Australia and other provinces in Canada. If we can increase worker safety based on their legislation or best practice, that’s the way we’re going to do it.” Landry cites the Australian legal requirement (a best practice in the U.S.), which requires painting the edges of the barges and all tripping hazards in a contrast colour within six and a half feet of the edge of a barge.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 22:16:12 +0000