FROM THE PREFACE This book brings together (in one text) all of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s regulatory requirements for making safe and proper confined space entries. Because confined space entry is a complicated procedure-and a process that contains inherent risks-those concerned with safety in the work place are constantly concerned with how to reduce the risks associated with confined space entry, how to eliminate or decrease the hazards workers face in confined spaces, and how to prevent injuries and fatalities from occurring in confined spaces. But comprehensive materials on confined space entry are difficult to find. Surprisingly little material on the subject is commercially available. Confined Space Entry: A Guide to Compliance collects all of the associated requirements and regulations, including OSHA’s Confined Space, Lockout/Tagout, Respiratory Protection Standards and Hot Work Permit requirements in this guidebook. These separate, specific safety standards and requirements have been combined and organized-as they should be, since each is married to the other-in a way that enables you (the user) to easily determine the critical relationship(s) between and among them-but more importantly, to teach you how to enter confined spaces safely-and how to provide workers with effective training for proper confined space entry. Written in user-friendly, jargon-free plain English, this guidebook provides you with clear sample programs to serve as models when you write your own programs. Workers have a growing need for more knowledge of the hazards of their work environments-and especially of confined spaces. To fulfill this imperative need, individuals and government must work together to better inform-and protect-these workers as they are exposed to a variety of complex and potentially life-threatening situations in confined spaces. The message this text delivers is simple: The better both workers and management understand the potential hazards and the implementation of measures to either eliminate or reduce the risks and hazards of confined space entry, the safer the workers and the facility-and the better the relationship between the operating facility, the workers, the community, and the regulators. As a result of no information, misinformation, no training, no supervision, little or no knowledge, confined space fatalities are real-they occur. They occur far too often.
