24th April 2006, 03:03 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by troll
{snip} I have to reiterate the folly of issuing such equipment only to fail miserably in the formulation of a professionally drafted risk assessment.
As the field team operate in their full ppe regalia on a damp and windy day, the local farming landowner saw fit to spray his crops with insecticide/pesticides.
{snip}I drew this issue to the attention of the HS bod only to be reminded that I must keep my hard hat on at all times.......
I am not sure that crop spraying could be predicted, although it might have been possible to identify it in a risk assessment so there are some grounds for including it. Do you know what the farmer was spraying onto his field? Did you ask him or did you just presume that it was some kind of insecticide or pesticide?
As far as working in the spray from the sprayer goes, you have as much responsibility for your own health and safety as your employer does. If you felt there was a health and safety risk then you should have made the issue known to your supervisor and, if no action was taken by them to determine whether the spray could be harmful or not and to prevent you from being harmed by it, you should have decided what was the best course of action for your own safety and implemented it. If this meant leaving site because you felt the conditions were unsafe you should have done so. If you failed to do so then you are as negligent as your employer with regard to H&S.
Your H&S bod sounds a bit daft if that really was their response to your concerns about the crop spraying. On the other hand, you state that the conditions were both windy and damp. While the wind might have spread the spray around, the damp conditions could have prevented that. The H&S bod may have taken this into account when formulating a response to you.
Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Antique
"A stitch in time saves precious bodily fluids."