On Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:53:54 +0000 someone who may be Timothy Murphy wrote this:-
I don't (and in a previous existence my staff tested water systems regularly for the little nasties). It can be a health problem and people are no longer with us as a result.
What I do not like is panic reactions from people who don't know much about the subject (I'm not suggesting you are in this category) who imagine that everyone is about to die. As with asbestos this is a risk which can be minimised by good engineering practice. While the risk is not zero it is low enough to be reasonable with suitable management.
The same is true of a number of systems. Where I once worked we lost two men who opened up a pressurised heating system before it had been depressurised. The result was inevitable, they died a horrible death and those who entered the space to try and rescue them and then removed the bodies are still haunted by it. A distant colleague lost an electrician who had got into the habit of opening up the panels of high voltage equipment before it had been earthed. It was only 11kV. It appears he thought this was safe as long as he didn't do any more than remove the panels, but one day he dropped his spanner onto the still live busbars. I can still recall the day the head engineer reminded us that we (the organisation concerned) had just killed a family in a house. The fan on a boiler had failed and it had not locked itself out. That taught me about accepting responsibility for something which was not directly one's fault. None of these events mean that the items concerned are unacceptably unsafe, only that safe systems of work and fail-safe equipment are part of risk management.