PHIL Newsum, of the Association of Diving Contractors International, brought an insightful perspective to the murky circumstances of the Paria tragedy that led to the deaths of four divers, at a public stakeholder consultation, on July 25, on proposed diving regulations.
Two Paria employees and the head of LMCS, the contractor, have appeared in court to answer charges arising from the Paria incident, two years ago.
The Occupational Health and Safety Authority’s discussions are a first step to creating more effective safety guidelines for underwater commercial diving work. These consultations will inform the crafting of overdue regularisation of the very specific and niche occupation of commercial diving and more critically, commercial diving for the country’s industrial sector.
Mr Newsum, clearly used to representing divers in the workplace, minced no words in his reaction to the record of the circumstances that led to the accident.
Describing the incident as avoidable, he took note of the inappropriate equipment, the inadequate level of information available before the job began and the quality of oversight, each of which came in for scrutiny during the commission of enquiry chaired by Jerome Lynch, KC.
What is critically important is that future works should not suffer the failures of the Paria tragedy.
Labour Minister Stephen Mc Clashie seemed willing to commit to a serious effort to create regulations that would be legally binding on all stakeholders in the interests of increased safety.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the US Department of Labour published an alert in 2021, specifically warning of the dangers to workers during operations around drains, tunnels, pipes or valves, citing the potential for the Delta P differential water pressure incidents.
The alert was pointedly titled, Keep workers alive during diving operations. What triggered it?
Between June 2019 and July 2021, there were six pipeline-related Delta P fatalities in the US, five of them at power-generation facilities.
The document cited multiple check points for both facility operators and diving contractors, most of which were absent or ignored on February 25, 2022, as the commission’s investigations later revealed.
What must emerge from these OSHA consultations must be concrete guidelines on when commercial diving should be used to effect repairs, and how those operations should be managed by commissioning companies, contractors and divers. The Ministry of Labour, after hearing from stakeholders and seeking the advice of industry professionals, must move quickly to create regulations of an international standard. The US authority’s alert distilled its advice to, “Do not start the dive until it is safe.”
Effective regulations must define, unequivocally, what safe means for commercial divers.
Underlining TT’s effort to align with international standards for commercial diving must be our own mission: Never again.
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