Air Quality Index - AIQ

This is posted on the MPCA website for Twin Cities Minnesota .

1st Time Ever

I've never filed a complaint with OSHA before. 877-470-6742 The response was professionally satisfying. I plan to call tomorrow to see what happened. It was nice being able to finally use my professional knowledge again for something other than homework. It was also gratifying to hear the response after describing the problem when I used the phrase "I'm an industrial hygienist". The city building inspector was my 2nd call. 612-685-8505. A thoroughly dissatisfying call. I got an answering machine(that's not a problem). What annoyed me was the lack of any option for "immediately dangerous situation". Not even "if this is urgent, please call 911". The voice mail indicates they will try to be out within 24 hours, maybe 48. They probably won't be out until Monday. There's a gas station going in on the corner of 36th St. & Cedar Ave. I stopped by the site last night on the way home after looking a the gargantuan pit as I drove by. The place occupies about 2 or 3 lots along Cedar. There is a pit the size of a standard swimming pool. (presumably for the UST for gas) Several other trenches and pits are present. There are no fences to keep kids out. There aren't even any signs saying "keep out". The soil is soft. One of the large excavators is parked right next to the large big pit. Trenching without shoring. Two of the walls are sloped shallow enough that they might not need reinforcement. But the side with the 20 foot (6.5 m) pile of dirt?

There is a large excavator parked between two pits. It's been raining quite a bit. The soil is pretty soft. I am quite certain that someone standing at the edge of the pit would have an imminent risk of slipping in. Followed by an imminent risk of quite a lot of soil falling in after her.

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Xcel & others prosecuted

People say the strangest things: It was just an accident. Xcel Energy is being prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department (upon the request of OSHA) for the deaths of 5 people a couple years ago. More interesting to me is that individual people are being prosecuted as well, not just the corporation. Two people from the sub-contractor doing the work. The original story from 2007 in the NY Times has a nice photo showing the exterior of the worksite. Minneapolis-based Xcel issued a statement Friday that said the fire was an accident, not a criminal act. Do these people actually think the two are mutually contradictory? Well, I guess they do. Or at least, they want you to. ... occurred during the renovation of a large empty metal pipe down which water normally flowed to create hydroelectric power. Five employees of RPI Coating were trapped in the pipe when chemicals being used in the renovation caught fire and blocked their only exit. well, since Xcel is here and the fatalities were there, the Denver paper has a better article. workers were in a drained water tunnel, known as a penstock, connected to the plant, cleaning a sprayer with a flammable solvent. Vapor from the solvent ignited, causing the fire ... There is a link at the bottom of this article to a .pdf copy of the Federal Indictment. I suppose there should be a standard disclaimer: this is my personal opinion, blah blah, based upon information available at the time blah blah.

Just gross

Photographs of the 'shroom infestation in the yard. Two close-ups for ID. One wider-angle to see extent of problem. Fungi gross me out. Ever since I saw a photo of an aspergillis infection on someone's leg ... eww... Of course, it was one of those high-quality, high-resolution medical photographs. I was very glad the lecture was just before lunch. I spent half an hour last week trying not to puke simply from the psychological effort of picking them. The top photograph is the yard after being left for 3 days without eradication. This is posted for the benefit of the Extension Officer I contacted for assistance. If anyone else, however, has suggestions short of a nuclear device, please let me know.

35W follow up

well, the tenuous relationship this has to IH is that I was en route to the AIHA sectional meeting. I get on the highway & head north to the meeting place. I abruptly realize that I'm crossing the new 35W bridge. The memorial pylons (I'm assuming they're part of the memorial?) are really tasteful. This disaster, too, shall pass.

Review of disaster

Living at this end of the Mississippi, the big disaster is the collapse of the I-35W bridge. A report has finally come out addressing the public health / medical issues. There is a summary of the article in journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness covers some highlights of "lessons hopefully learned". Unfortunately, I doubt that the infrastructure maintenance long-term financing has been noticed.