16-05: Safety In Cooling Tower Maintenance

Maintenance of Cooling Towers usually poses quite a number of occupational/personal safety challenges. For example, the process of removing and replacing packing (fill) in a cooling tower involves working at height in most cases. If not well managed, this exercise can result to an accident of falling, leading to injury and/or fatality. In order to avert such safety incidences during Cooling Tower maintenance, a robust safety management system needs to be developed for maintenance work. This paper uses a case study to show the various safety hazards that can be associated with the maintenance of Cooling Towers, as well as, suggest ways these hazards/risks could be mitigated.