The Porcelain Press

Waste Isolation Project Plant

The idea for the Porcelain Press resulted from a visit to the Sandia National Laboratories office in Carlsbad, New Mexico; the major difference being that their Press deals with a variety of topics and the WIPP Press focuses on safety-related information. The First WIPP Porcelain Press was published on May 11, 1998, and there have approximately one edition every 2 weeks or 10 working days. We try not to leave these articles up for more than 15 days.

These newsletters are one page documents placed in Plexiglas holders which are mounted on the wall at seated eye-level beside the toilet paper holders inside the restroom stalls, or at standing eye-level above the urinals. Additionally, copies are placed in the in-baskets for those employees working in the WIPP underground.

Topics for these publications are classified as follows:

Topic 1 - Voluntary Protection Program
Topic 2 - National Safety Month
Topic 3 - General Safety
Topic 4 - Integrated Safety Management System
Topic 5 - Radiation/ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable)
Topic 6 - Lessons Learned Bulletins

Specific topics have ranged from announcing presentations/events during National Safety Month to information on the four types of Ionizing Radiation to statistics on distance, and how little time is saved speeding (this article gave details on the distance from town to the WIPP site and the time actually saved by going various speeds). Our intentions are to make the topics personal to the WIPP employees and their families, and timely in relation to current events.

To learn more about this program or to obtain program documents or procedures, please contact Merl Rosenthal at 505-234-8902, or via e-mail atrosentm@wipp.carlsbad.nm.us

As part of our effort to promote and recognize safety and health program excellence and achievement, the DOE VPP is looking for proven site work practices, approaches, innovative solutions, and program models that can be shared and communicated with others across the complex. If your site has a best practice that you would like featured here, please contact us at DOEVPP@eh.doe.gov