Canadian Biomass Magazine

WPAC Safety Committee releases 2020 work plan

January 22, 2020
By Gordon Murray, WPAC


The Wood Pellet Association of Canada‘s Safety Committee was established in 2014 with the mission of improving the wood pellet industry’s collective safety performance, earning a reputation with regulatory authorities and the public as an industry that is highly effective at managing safety, and learning and sharing best practices regarding safety.

The Safety Committee is proud of its 2019 accomplishments which included:

• holding three training events, including a silo fire prevention and suppression workshop;
• a wood products safety summit and a process safety workshop focusing on bow tie analysis;
• developing a best practices document for combustible gas and confined space awareness and risk mitigation;
• developing and implementing an incident reporting system for our sector; and
• developing a plant operator training framework

We have now released our 2020 work plan as part of our objective to hold our industry publicly accountable for our safety performance. Our key focus areas for the year ahead include:

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1. Training plant operators in safe HCI (human-computer interface) work procedures.
2. Developing a plan for centralized nitrogen storage and rapid mobilization in the event of silo fires.
3. Implementing the bow tie methodology to identify and manage critical hazards and controls in our facilities.
4. Combustible dust hazard mitigation.
5. Holding a wood products safety summit

The 2020 Work Plan is available here.

WPAC’s Safety Committee works in close cooperation with WorkSafeBC and the BC Forest Safety Council. The committee welcomes new members. If you are interested to join the committee, please contact Scott Bax or Gordon Murray:

Scott Bax, Safety Committee Chair
Email: Scott.Bax@pinnaclepellet.com
Tel: (604) 787-3176

Gordon Murray, Safety Committee Secretary
Email: gord@pellet.org
Tel: (250) 837-8821


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