Environmental & Risk Management / Clean Building / Abatement Worker

Abatement Worker: Overview

As an abatement worker, you will be assigned a set of facility areas from which to resolve hazardous substances issues. Abatement workers are typically certified to resolve a specific hazardous substance. Depending on the type of hazardous substance, resolution many entail encapsulating the substance with a sealant, encasing it, or removing it. Abatement workers need to follow the appropriate regulations in disposing of any hazardous substance that they remove.

During a hazmat process, a certified abatement worker might perform these tasks:

travel to specific areas in the building, as provided by the hazmat manager, and abate the specific hazardous substance
document how they resolved the hazardous substance in each area
when the abatement project is complete, ensure the area is no longer hazardous by using air monitoring equipment or by visually inspecting the area (this does not replace the need for a formal inspection).

Abatement workers typically receive the following from a hazmat manager:

a list of rooms to abate -- The list of rooms to abate are organized as a set hazard assessment items, An environmental hazard manager will have assigned these items to you by completing the Abatement Worker field with your ID.
a hard-copy floor plan drawing of rooms to abate

Abatement Workers with Access to the ARCHIBUS System

Depending on operations at your site, abatement workers may be granted access to the ARCHIBUS system so that they can directly update the system with details about the areas they abate. Typically, they will update these fields for each hazard assessment item:

Date Abated -- Enter the date that the work is completed.
Hazard Response -- From the available list, indicate how you resolved the item (encapsulated, removed, encased, etc.) Some items may contain asbestos, but if they are in tact (not cracked or chipped), they are not releasing asbestos into the air and are best left undisturbed. In this case, use the No Response value.
Hazard Status Code -- From the available list, choose a value to indicate the current status, such as Completed or Abatement (if work is still in process).
Labeled? -- If you seal an area that contains a hazardous substance, you typically label it as such so that future inspectors can bypass this area. Set this field to Yes if you labeled the area as part of your abatement work.

In addition to completing these fields of an assessment item, an abatement worker might have call to work with other features of the Clean Building application. For example:

In the case of mold or lead, abatement workers might take samples if they find new areas of growth or suspicion, particularly since those substances can be detected with a portable unit.
Abatement workers might need to generate activity items if they spot something that needs to be taken care of before they can do their jobs. For example, an action item or service request to gain access to a locked area, or a request to shut off water or electrical power in an area prior to abatement work.
An abatement worker might correct a data entry mistake with respect to the location or material or any other field, given that the abatement worker is the last line of defense, the person that is ultimately closest to the substance.

Tasks

To use ARCHIBUS to abate hazmat issues, you will choose the Clean Building/Abatement Worker section on the Process Navigator. From this area, you can access all the tasks that you require for seeing the list of items assigned to you to abate. As an abatement worker, you may find that some of these fields accessed from these tasks are not available for you to edit.

You will work with these tasks:

Manage My Abatement Activity Items -- An environmental hazard manager or facility manager may have decided that some projects or assessment items require management with additional features: communication logs, action items, and service requests. If assessment items assigned to you have these additional management tools or if some projects have action times or service requests assigned to you, you can access these management tools using the Manage My Abatement Activity Items task. You may also need to create your own records with these management tools. For information, see:
Manage My Hazard Abatement Items -- This is the main task that you will run to enter into the system the results of your abatement. Typically, you will need to complete only a few fields. However, for your convenience, the system enables you to perform other tasks in case you need to take samples or correct existing information.
- provide details on the location of the area you are abating
- enter details about abating the area (completing only fields appropriate to their role as an abatement worker)
- review samples to be tested for hazardous substances
- record the results of testing the samples
- enter details about surveying the area, the hazmat that you find. and recommended actions
- updating hazmat assessment items as a project progresses
When working with this task, you will see only items that:
- have been assigned to you
- for items managed with Service Requests, you must be a member of the work team associated with the service request

Additionally, the Process Navigator offers the following tasks, which provide location tools for hazmat field work.
- View Locations Navigator
- View Locations List
- View Assessment Items by Location

Note: The forms that you work with might also be completed by an inspector or a field assessor. Accordingly, the forms may list fields that are typically completed by these users. As an abatement worker, you will find that these fields will be uneditable. Likewise, the help topics documenting these forms may mention fields that are not visible to you and fields that you cannot edit.

Abatement Workers without Access to the ARCHIBUS System

If an abatement worker is not granted access to the ARCHIBUS system, they typically record their notes on paper or in their own system and provide this data to the hazmat manager who will then input it into ARCHIBUS.