May 24, 2019

Workers at the Fort Martin Power Plant participated in a national safety stand down sponsored by OSHA on May 13. Well over a hundred employees and craft partners gathered in the plant assembly room to meet with Anthony Milam, compliance specialist out of the Charleston, W.Va. OSHA office.

“We were proud to be invited to participate,” said Fort Martin Director Dan Coldren. “We had great turnout, both from our employees and Mobile Maintenance, as well as several contracting companies that partner with us on site.”

Fort Martin, as well as Pleasants Power Station, is among an elite subset of industrial facilities nationwide

that belong to OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) safety program, an OSHA initiative that encourages industry to prevent workplace injuries through hazard prevention and control, worksite analysis, training, as well as close cooperation between management and workers.

Anthony Milam addresses workers during Fort Martin’s fall prevention stand down.

“That’s one of the real advantages of working with OSHA and the VPP program,” said Brad McPherson, Regulated Generation senior safety consultant. “Everyone on site pulls together and works toward the same goal There’s never any question that ensuring safety and minimizing exposure is our priority.”

The subject of this year’s OSHA safety stand down was fall prevention, and the presentation focused on hazard awareness and mitigation.

“We want to raise fall hazard awareness,” said Anthony. “There were 366 deaths from falls in construction in the last year on record, more than a third of all fatalities. Those deaths were preventable.”

Anthony added, “I was impressed by the turnout here. You can tell there’s a real commitment to safety.”

Read more about the stand down and fall protection on the OSHA website.