| Safety at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary |
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary’s conservation facility forms a critical hub for Audubon Florida’s 13,450-acre protected area in Naples, FL. Nearly a dozen staff members store materials here, from vehicles to tools, parts to cleaning supplies. This shop is not only a repository of safety equipment for the entire Sanctuary—it’s an important safety site itself.
With that in mind, Interim Sanctuary Director Marshall Olson led the Corkscrew Safety Committee in an area safety review of the shop in September.
“An area safety review is an examination of the workplace for hazards and elements that increase worker safety risk, as well as an examination of the effectiveness of safety-related actions that have been taken to decrease safety risks,” Olson explains. Through conducting the reviews, the team has their eyes peeled not only for ways to decrease risk, but also to highlight and reinforce best practices already in place.
Area safety reviews allow the team to anticipate future safety needs while identifying potential trouble spots before accidents may take place, with a special focus on leading indicators. “Leading indicators are factors that promote safety in our workplaces,” says Olson. “Indicators such as having appropriate protective gear, good housekeeping, equipment inspection prior to use, pre-job safety discussions, and post-analyses are good examples.”
During their most recent safety review of the facility, the committee quietly observed normal shop functions, asking questions as needed. Good news! They noted a clean building with detailed labeling for the organization of equipment and parts, hazardous materials stored appropriately with Safety Data Sheets attached, and clean vehicles with up-to-date vehicle checklists. The risks they did identify will be summarized, analyzed, and mitigated with forward-looking action plans. For example, a fan that runs nearly all the time needed a better guard around it.
This review was the first of multiple, ongoing area safety reviews planned by the Corkscrew Safety Committee. By working together across teams and programs, Sanctuary staff aim to strengthen their culture of safety and forward-thinking risk mitigation. In the next quarter, staff will perform their review of back-country fieldwork!
The safety review work at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is an example of “positive capacities” where discussions on risk are ongoing (past success is not a guarantee for safety) and there is continuous improvement, driven by a collective culture of safety at Corkscrew, not audits or inspections.
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