SRR Construction Employees Reach 12-Year Milestone of Working Safe
June 24, 2010
SRR construction employees place an electrical substation on a pad at one of the SRS tank farms
AIKEN, S.C. – What was happening in June 1998? Bill Clinton was President. Microsoft released Windows 98. And the construction workforce that is now part of Savannah River Remediation (SRR) began a string of injury-free work that continues today.
SRR construction workers have achieved 12 consecutive years and accumulated over 22.7 million hours of work without an injury causing a lost day of work. The last lost day of work due to an injury was on June 23, 1998. The string of 4,384 safety days and counting began under the last two Savannah River Site (SRS) contracts led by parent company URS.
"The typical work for construction workers at SRS includes all the traditional construction hazards, radiological hazards and unusual hazardous material risks. This milestone is a tremendous accomplishment," said Jim French, SRR President and Project Manager. "Our construction workers, who come from the local Building Trades, are professionals in their chosen crafts. They have built a world-class culture of safety and professionalism, which is evident in this remarkable record."
A lost workday is a day in which a worker cannot perform any work because of work-related injury or illness.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a typical construction site in the United States would experience one lost day of work every 118,000 hours or 201 lost work day injuries.
David Harold, SRR Construction Safety Manager, said the milestone was "an astounding achievement," considering the national average.
"We believe this is one of the best construction industry records in the nation," Harold said. "It proves that we have safety as a core value. We couldn't be more proud of this world-class performance."
Noting the Department of Energy's (DOE) commitment to keep safety a focal point of all work, Terrel Spears, Assistant Manager for Waste Disposition, DOE-Savannah River Operations Office, said, "I congratulate SRR on their continued focus on keeping workers safe. The statistics underscore the fact that employees leave the Site safely each day."
There are approximately 500 SRR employees in the construction department. The other SRR employees are involved in liquid waste operations and support services.
SRS is owned by DOE. The SRS Liquid Waste contract is managed by SRR, a team of companies led by URS with partners Bechtel National, CH2M Hill and Babcock & Wilcox. Critical subcontractors for the contract are AREVA, Energy Solutions and URS Safety Management Solutions.
Point of Contact: Dean Campbell, Manager, Public Affairs dean.campbell@srs.gov