By direction of OPNAVINST 5100.8, echelon-2 commanders are responsible for ensuring that their commanders, commanding officers, officers-incharge, and their subordinate supervisors conduct an aggressive safety and mishap prevention program. This instruction also directs them to assign safety responsibilities to qualified personnel as a primary duty billet, where possible. If this cannot be done due to manning levels, it is to be assigned as a collateral duty. As a supervisor, you are responsible for following these directives and for ensuring that each individual under your supervision complies with safety and occupational health standards.

Programs in the primary areas are the responsibility of specific program sponsors. These sponsors maintain the technical expertise necessary to establish policy direction, organization, and procedures for their programs in each of the following major Navy elements: (1) submarine and diving, (2) surface, (3) shore, and (4) aviation.

As a Mineman, it is your responsibility to understand, comply with, and assist your command in all aspects of safety.

PERSONAL SAFETY PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

As the supervisor, you are responsible for ensuring that all personnel have, use, and maintain personal safety protective equipment. This equipment is designed to prevent or reduce the severity of injury or illness.

It must be recognized that personal protective devices do nothing to reduce or eliminate the hazard itself. They merely establish a "last line of defense" to the hazard. Therefore, if the equipment is not used or maintained properly, it is of no value. For this reason, mandatory enforcement of equipment use is the key element in an effective personal protective equipment program.

The following six items must be taken into consideration for the issue of personal safety protective equipment:

1. Eye and face protection: Approved eye and face protection must be worn when there is a reasonable probability that an injury could be prevented by wearing such equipment. Injury can be caused by flying particles and chips; splashes from liquids (such as acids, caustics, and solvents); or operations that generate hot slag or molten metal, welding glare, etc. Personnel in the vicinity of such operations (including other workers, supervisors, or visitors) are required to wear eye protective equipment. It is the responsibility of the activity to provide the required approved protective equipment and to enforce its use.

2. Respiratory protection: Respiratory hazards may occur through exposure to harmful dust, fogs, fumes, mists, gases, smoke, sprays, and vapors. The best way to protect personnel is by using accepted engineering control measures, such as local exhaust ventilation. However, the use of engineering control measures may not always be technologically or economically feasible, due to the nature and location of the activities. In these situations, the use of appropriate respiratory protection should be used to assure personnel protection.

3. Head protection: Helmets and hardhats must be worn when there is a possibility of impact from falling objects and at all times when operating materials-handling equipment (MHE).

Figure 2-3.-Discrepancy record.

4. Foot protection: Foot protection must be worn when personnel are engaged in activities that involve danger from heavy falling objects. This can involve almost any job in a mine shop.

5. Electrical protection: Appropriate rubber protective equipment must be provided for personnel working on energized circuits.

6. Hearing protection: Hearing protective devices must be worn by all personnel when they enter or work in an area where the operations generate noise levels greater than 84-dB(A) sound levels or 140-dB peak-sound pressure levels or greater. The determination of which hearing protective device or combination of devices, suitable for use in each situation, is the responsibility of the industrial hygienist (or other competent personnel under the direction of an industrial hygienist).

All personal protective equipment must be of a safe design and construction for the work to be performed. Standards and specifications for the design and use of this equipment have been developed as a result of extensive research and testing. Only those items that have been recognized and approved shall be used.

This is not an all-inclusive list. It is your responsibility to ensure that your personnel have the proper protective equipment and that all instructions in the use of the equipment are followed. All the safety devices, equipments, and instructions will be of no use if they are not used as intended.