The Staff of the Office of Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) provides professional services in support of an environmentally healthy and safe campus in the following areas: Fire Safety, Lab Safety, Occupational Safety, and Environmental Compliance. EH&S, along with Public Safety, is conducting fire drills in all campus buildings in the upcoming weeks. The Fire Drill Schedule is online. We are actively recruiting Fire Wardens for each floor of each building, and are encouraging volunteers to contact us prior to the end of the Fall semester. We have also developed evacuation maps to be posted in the coming weeks in all elevator lobbies to assist occupants in locating the available exits, fire extinguishers, evacuation chairs, stand pipe hoses, automatic electronic defibrillators (AEDs), and the assembly areas for each building. During the summer months, our staff members, along with our outside contractors, have re-inspected every fire extinguisher, manual pull station and smoke detector, fire alarm system, and public address (PA) system on campus.
Lab Safety Training
All faculty, staff, and students who work in a laboratory are required by law to attend initial Lab Safety Training within 30 days of their appointment/assignment. Initial Laboratory safety training must be attended in person. Complete the registration form to sign up for a live classroom training. If you have already received your initial live training and require a periodic refresher, you may either attend a live training or complete online refresher components remotely. Refresher trainings cover the same components required in the initial training, but are designed for experienced laboratory users. You must register for refresher training as you would for initial training so that you can be placed into the correct refresher program.
Laboratory Safety
EH&S is responsible for ensuring that College laboratory safety policies are followed in campus research and teaching laboratories. James Saccardo is the College’s Chemical Hygiene Officer and manages laboratory safety issues in the Laboratory Sciences Building (Building 6S). Laboratories and shops can often have unique hazards and generate wastes that cannot be discarded into regular trash receptacles. The staff of the EH&S is available to answer questions on topics related to the health, safety, and well-being of all members of the campus community and environmental impact of waste materials that we discard.
You have the right to know about hazardous materials in your workplace and what you can do to protect yourself and others from any hazards they may exhibit. EH&S offers NYS Right to Know -Hazard Communication training, a requirement of State and Federal laws, to all faculty, staff, and students working in laboratories or with hazardous materials in the course of their duties. We encourage all faculty to attend periodically and ensure that their staff and students attend this training periodically in an effort to maintain the highest levels of health and safety compliance attainable.
The Chemical Hygiene Plan and CUNY Lab Safety Manual are as follows:
Chemical Hygiene Plan (hard copy in lab)
For a copy of this document, please contact the Office of Environmental Health and Safety.
EH&S will soon move into a state-of-the-art laboratory support facility in the Laboratory Science Building to better support science and technology on both the academic and research fronts.
We look forward to working with everyone at CSI to make this a safe place to study, work, and visit. Please contact our office with any concerns, comments, or suggestions at ehs@csi.cuny.edu or 718.982.4300.
