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User Experiment Safety Process Update: For Experiments After August 17

by Sue Bailey, User Services Group Leader

bailey-headshotThe ALS is updating the User Experiment Safety Process. The main change that will affect users is a new requirement to complete an Experiment Safety Sheet (ESS) for each visit and for each beamline. This is a change from current procedure where an ESS can be valid for up to one year and may cover more than one beamline.

We want this to work well and to help you, so if you have feedback on these changes, I encourage you to contact me. Your primary point of contact during the change, for submitting and handling ESSs, will be the ALS Experiment Coordinator, David Malone, with other members of the safety team and user services as back up.

Summary of Changes

  • In general, we will require your ESS submission a minimum of 1–2 weeks before the experiment (earlier is also good). But see below for more hazardous experiments.
  • An ESS will be required for each visit and will include the experiment date.
  • The ESS will only cover work at a single beamline; a group working on two beamlines at the same time will require two separate ESSs.
  • The ESS should only cover the work of a single group.
  • To simplify submitting each ESS, we are making it easy to use a previous ESS as a template.
  • Automated emails will be sent to remind users to submit an ESS, starting 3 weeks before the expected start of the experiment. Since schedules sometimes change, we may miss occasional reminders—this does not prevent you submitting an ESS—you know when your experiment will happen.

Very early submission of an ESS is needed for experiments requiring additional review.

Some experiments require additional safety documents and review by subject matter experts. These include:

  • All biological materials
  • Radioactive materials
  • Hazardous chemicals
  • Lasers
  • Electrical equipment the user is bringing (anything with a plug)

For such experiments, please submit your ESS in good time to allow our staff to help you get ready. If the final details of every sample and experimenter will not be known until later, just give us what you have. An initial submission several weeks before the experiments alerts us to start a dialogue on handling the samples and equipment.