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I just perused this report for a short section in class I have next week (see table 5). This is a table showing workplace injury rates (full disclosure: if you examine the table for mortality you get dramatically different results, a point we may address shortly).

  • The annual workplace injury rate for people working in oil and gas extraction is less than one case per 100 workers. 
  • The overall workplace injury rate across all occupations is 3.6 per 100 workers.
  • In state and local government, the workplace injury rate is 5.4 per 100 workers, over 5 times larger than the hazards due to oil and gas extraction (yes, I know carpal tunnel is not the same as a broken leg). Check out some of the subcategories of government and you get close to rates of 10 per 100 workers.

The only reason I post it today is that I just came across a web advertising for yet another Josh Fox fracumentary and rather than dealing with the actual data on environmental quality and related matters, the new reason that fracking is the devil’s business is that it is too hazardous. I’ll go with you Josh, all the way.

3 Responses to “Sunday Morning Coughee, Occupational Hazard Edition”

  1. Harry says:

    In my experience, people in the energy business put safety at the top of the priority list, down to the smallest detail, even where it is not directly related to good operation.

    Your stats come as no surprise, even though I never worked with any drillers, just pipelines and chemical ops.

  2. RIT_Rich says:

    Ah! But the dataset counts illness as well. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that government workers tend to get and take a lot more sick days than others.

    • Harry says:

      Work for Exxon, your hangnail gets documented if you chewed it in your truck. Work for HHS, you get the day off and a whole week to be studied by NIH. The annual raise has been cut from 7% to 5% because of the Sequester.

      Ok, some may quibble that I exaggerate.

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