Irrigation Pipe Work Safety Stats and Facts

FACTS

Irrigation System Hazards Include:

1. Electrical Contacts
2. Overhead Power Lines
3. Spraying Water on Power Lines
4. Lightning
5. Entanglements
6. Run Overs
7. Chemical Exposure/Poisoning

STATS

• Each year, 25 % of farm workers are killed or injured when long equipment makes contact with overhead power lines. Irrigation pipes are involved in many accidents, as young people seeing animals enter the pipe will often upend it trying to get them out.
• In Washington State 42 farmers were electrocuted; 23 of them were killed while working near irrigation pipes that came into contact with overhead electrical lines.
• There were 15 irrigation pipe-associated (IPA) electrocutions among farmers and 15 among farm workers.
• 93 % of the IPA electrocutions occurred as compared with only 61 %of other types of electrocution.
• 2 people are killed and many more are injured every year when they come into contact with overhead power lines (OHPLs) during agricultural work. Contact with them rarely results in just minor injury. Machinery (such as combines, tipping trailers and irrigators), equipment (such as irrigation pipes and ladders) and activities (such as stacking) are often involved.
• 1 employee suffered a near-fatal electric shock when an aluminium irrigation pipe he picked up contacted a 33kV overhead power line.