May 29, 2009

Water Department Wins State Award for Safety Communications

The Arlington Water Utilities Department has won a state award for its workplace safety communication program.

The department’s Workplace Safety Committees won a 2009 Texas Watermark Award for its Safety-at-a-Glance quarterly newsletter, which is distributed to employees via the Intranet. Copies are also printed and posted in break rooms and distributed to managers and work teams.

Safety-at-a-Glance began publishing in March 2008 as another way to communicate with the department’s 200-plus staff. The four Safety Committees of administration, field operations, meter services and treatment have methods of communicating among individual committees, but wanted to distribute cross-divisional safety information to include all employees, said Water Resource Technician Tim Oberg, who is the editor-in-chief of the newsletter. Water Resource Technician Ryan Simpson is the publisher.
Each quarterly newsletter features health and safety articles, employee profiles and information tailored to the issues that meter readers, crew chiefs, heavy equipment operators, water technicians and engineers face daily.

“Safety is something that every person has to be more aware of,” Oberg said. “Because there are many hazards that we face everyday as Water Utilities employees, the newsletter is designed to help employees keep safety in mind.”

The Watermark Award was presented by the American Water Works Association in April at the AWWA Conference in Galveston. Earlier this spring, the department also received the R. B. Batchelor Memorial Safety Award for exceptional water safety education by the Texas Water Utilities Association.