The Stanford Weed Abatement Program, managed by the Grounds Department, is an annual effort to control the abundant grasses and weeds throughout the campus. When the grasses dry out, they become fuel for wildfires. Each year over $80,000 is spent to abate this potential fire hazard.

It begins every March when two employees equipped with tractors and flail mowers begin in the Arboretum areas to the north and work south to the faculty staff areas of the campus. By April, two additional employees follow behind the mowers using weed eaters in areas inaccessible to the tractors. In June the crews have completed work in the foothill area, discing firebreaks as well as mowing in sensitive areas where reforestation and revegetation studies are ongoing. Additional efforts for mowing and cleaning areas continue throughout the summer.

All of these efforts help minimize the risk of fire by removing fuels and creating defensible spaces around buildings and especially homes in the wildland-urban interface area along Junipero Serra Blvd.

While the Stanford campus experiences several small vegetation fires each year, the memory of the July 10, 1992 fire that scorched 500 acres in the foothills is still fresh. The lessons learned from that fire were incorporated into the way areas are protected today. If you live in a wildland-urban interface area, there are several precautions that you should be taking to protect your property. Visit the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection website at http://fire.ca.gov to learn more.

By the time someone in a laboratory has an accident, it’s too late. A reality show that presents what happened…would miss the important stuff. Had to be there?…well, no thanks. Had to be there before something happens…that’s the focus.

EH&S, working with the Medical School, is taking a new approach to safety compliance training. Instead of developing long training courses, we developed a set of short videos—between 20 seconds and six minutes apiece—and put them online, where anyone with a SuNet ID can view them whenever they want.

Compliance

According to a recent article by Environmental Health & Engineering (www.theinc.com) concerning safety compliance issues in biotech companies and research laboratories across the US, examples of often-encountered compliance violations include:

• Improper chemical container labeling/storage.
• Improper hazardous waste labeling – (chemical labels with abbreviations, no hazard listed, and no dates).
• Outdated, unused chemicals still on the shelf.
• Improperly labeled and maintained Satellite Accumulation Areas (SAAs) and Main Accumulation Area (MAA).”

The Approach

While training is often the first response of a training specialist, all agreed that a different approach would work here. First, not everyone looks forward to a nice long online training course. Secondly, lab workers already know the standard rules and procedures for safety compliance. Additionally, when lab workers do express questions about container labeling or hazardous material management, the questions tended to focus on special cases and circumstances, not the everyday fare. So EH&S focused their videos on special cases, delivered the content and kept the delivery very short.

The videos are available through the EH&S website at: https://ehsapps.stanford.edu/safety-videos , and (for those who have video iPods) through the Stanford iTunes site at: http://itunes.stanford.edu/community/ .

EH&S will add new videos as we complete them. We’re also open to suggestions for videos or additional compliance support. Write ehs-training@list.stanford.edu with any suggestions.