Chasing the Green Cloud

In the EHS world, the weekend "on-call" rotation is a game of Russian roulette. You pray for silence for the next 48 hours. That did not happen this one weekend. My phone rang. On the other end was the paint shop supervisor. It sounded like he was panicking.

"There’s a green cloud in the paint shop," he stammered. "It's everywhere. I don't know what to do."

My blood ran cold. "Evacuate everyone. I’ll be there in ten minutes."

I arrived on-site, immediately strapping on my respiratory protection before stepping foot within the shop. The air was still seemed hazy. Every surface, every machine, every square inch of the floor was coated in a fine, bright green powder.

Oh, shit, I said to myself.

This was hexavalent chromium dust—a notoriously aggressive, heavily regulated, known human carcinogen.

I tracked down the on-call maintenance technician to request help for troubleshooting and to start the clean-up. He looked at me blankly and said the maintenance tech was performing his routine Preventative Maintenance (PM). The task? Doing a compressed air blow-out of the sanding booth.

My brain short-circuited. WTF. This is not supposed to happen.

He didn't flinch. Instead, he pulled out his clipboard. "I am just doing what I was told."

I knew instantly that this was no longer just a hazmat issue; it was a political landmine. The current maintenance manager ran his department like a sovereign nation, and he despised EHS interfering with his business.

This was way above my pay grade. I pulled out my phone and documented everything for my management. I took photos of the green-coated room, the dust-covered equipment, and a crystal-clear shot of that written PM. I subsequently called my supervisor to give him a 'run down' of the situation and passed the buck to him.

The remainder of my Saturday was watching the hazmat team clean up the area.

The Lesson: Blind obedience to a bad procedure

"We've always done it this way" or "It's in the manual" are the most dangerous phrases in the industrial world. Critical thinking is necessary for all tasks especially if it poses a health and safety issue.