Danville Utilities received on Tuesday its second national award in as many days by earning the American Public Power Association’s Electric Utility Safety Award for safe operating practices in 2011.
The utility placed earned first place among electric utilities with 110,000 to 249,000 worker-hours of annual worker exposure. The safety award follows national recognition earned on Monday when APPA awarded Danville Utilities with the Reliable Public Power Provider designation.
The safety award was presented Tuesday by Darrell Shaw, chairman of the APPA Safety Committee and Safety & Technical Training Specialist at Memphis, Tenn., Light Gas & Water Division, during the association’s annual Engineering & Operations Technical Conference, held in Cleveland, Ohio.
“Safety should always be priority number one for electric utilities,” Shaw said. “Sending each and every one of our employees home safe to their families every night is what it’s all about.”
More than 275 utilities entered the annual contest. Entrants were placed in categories according to their number of worker hours and judged for the most incident-free records during 2011. The incidence rate, used to judge contest entries, is based on the number of work-related reportable injuries or illnesses and the number of worker-hours during 2011, as defined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
This year’s award marks the second consecutive APPA safety award for Danville Utilities.
“A lot of work goes into building a strong safety record,” said Jim Kendrick, director of Danville Utilities. “Danville Utilities looks forward to continuing to improve its safety practices as it provides reliable service to the community and our service area.
“I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Ken Ashworth, Director of Power & Light on his division’s accomplishments and to all those individuals that have worked so hard to achieve this great honor. All of the Utilities employees are committed to safety and providing reliable services to our customers.”
The safety contest has been held annually for the last 52 years.
On Monday, Danville Utilities was one of 176 of the nation’s more than 2,000 public power utilities to earn Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3®) recognition from the APPA for providing consumers with the highest degree of reliable and safe electric service. The RP3 designation recognizes public power utilities that demonstrate proficiency in four key disciplines: reliability, safety, workforce development and system improvement
APPA is the national organization representing more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community- and state- owned electric utilities.