Environmental Health & Safety
Heritage takes pride in its commitment to health and safety and has one of the best records in the industry. The objective of our health and safety plan is to control the chemical, physical and environmental hazards through proper planning, hazard recognition, evaluation, control and communication so that we have no accidents, spills or other incidents that could adversely affect our employees, the public or the environment. To make that happen, we require strict adherence to the standard health and safety manual by our personnel, subcontractors and visitors at Heritage project sites.
Our program fully complies with OSHA general industry and construction industry standards, with emphasis placed on OSHA’s “Hazardous Waste and Emergency Response” standard. Heritage’s Health and Safety Program is administered by the corporate health and safety manager who reports directly to the President.
Our program is implemented on a corporate-wide basis with health and safety plans prepared for every Heritage project. Unannounced inspections and audits are performed to determine compliance with each site-specific plan. The major elements of our program are: employee medical monitoring; employee health and safety training; site health and safety plan development; site inspections and audits; and near miss and safety observation follow-up and corrective action.
6Safety Program
In 2010, Heritage developed and implemented a company-wide safety program called 6 Safety. The purpose of this program is to cultivate and maintain a culture of safety-minded employees at Heritage. Our 6 Safety program focuses on (but is not excluded to) six work activities that present the greatest hazard to our employees if proper procedure are not followed. The six work activities are:
- Confined Space Entry
- Fall Protection
- Hot Work
- Lockout/Tagout
- Line Breaking
- Water Blasting
We believe that every employee has the right and the responsibility to STOP WORK if they feel it is unsafe. Our employees have the full support and expectation of managment to do so. In order to cultivate a 'safety first' mindset at Heritage, we have also developed an incentive program and Safety Leadership Program. These two programs encourage employees to report unsafe environments and work practices to their managers. By doing so, we are able to identify previously unknown hazards and develop action plans to avoid unsafe situations in the future. Additionally, employees are encouraged to nominate fellow employees who they think exemplify safety. These are just a few of the ways we are continuing to build a culture of safety at Heritage!
