Tom's Blog: OSHA and the EPA

OSHA AND THE EPA IN AVIATION

We need to look back before we can look forward. When aviation was in its infancy and pilots were landing and taking off from corn fields or any straight away that could be used for a runway. When they had to do some maintenance or even refuel the aircraft, did they use approved drip pans to catch whatever leaked out or spilled over? I think we all know the answer to that question is NO. What about when they painted the airplane, what happened to all the left over paint, mixes, and thinner? They probably just left it or poured it back into the paint can and ether let it dry or put the lid on and threw it in the trash. Just look at where we are today compared to then, it’s like a night and day difference. If the EPA caught you doing the practices they used back then, the question wouldn’t be if you got fined but how much. Now the EPA regulates things like aircraft noise in the surrounding areas of the airports, fuel and oil spills, POL collection points, really everything that might affect or harm the environment. We have come a long way from the Wright Brothers first flight to the modern age aviation that persists today.

The United Flight in the Hudson. How much oil and fuel leaked into this river.

What happens to the ground when all the fuel and oil don’t burn?

For me when I think of OSHA the first thing I think of is safety boots or steel toe boots I know OSHA has nothing to do with them its ANSI that rates the boots, but that’s what I think of. Any way back to OSHA, they are responsible for regulating the work place and to make sure that both the employee and employer are responsible for a safe work place. Like the EPA if you look back to the industrial age in America and the building of all the skyscrapers from NYC to San Francisco people were falling off and dying on a daily basis because they had no safety harnesses to secure them to the beams. You see old footage of the workers from way back building the empire state building or the golden gate bridge and they are cruising along on the steel beams without a care in the world. Now days you even get 10 feet above the ground and you have to be secured in a harness and tethered to a secure point.