Like many VRSA members, Loudoun Water, a water and wastewater authority serving more than 80,000 households in Loudoun County, was the recent recipient of an unannounced inspection by the Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Program, known as VOSH.
“We received a visit from VOSH regarding fall protection at one of our water tanks in particular,” said Loudoun Water Risk, Safety and Security Manager Lenny McDonald. “They came out with some very specific questions, and we were happy to escort them around to perform some inspections, and based on the result of that inspection, there were some mitigation efforts that needed to be made.”
Because of their strong working relationship with VRSA and their designated safety consultant, Christine Gillison, herself a former safety consultant with VOSH, they knew exactly what to do next.
“We reached out immediately to VRSA,” said McDonald.
“We knew that VRSA had folks on staff who have a lot of experience with VOSH inspections,” agreed Loudoun Water General Manager Brian Carnes. “We thought having someone by our side to go through this would be a benefit and help the process go more smoothly.”
Gillison set to work, guiding the authority through the administrative process up through an informal conference. As a result of the authority’s follow-up and mitigation efforts, every citation was subsequently vacated.
Learn more about the process and the resulting vacating of citations in the video below.