Well we had a great weekend up in Toby. It is so nice to walk into one of Ontario's three dive tourist areas and get dry fills and see all the air stations accredited. One doesn't have to feel like a criminal slinking around the shop looking for that hidden or non-existent air certification. Both shops have them on the wall displayed proudly knowing the air meets a recognized standard for Canada. Lets hope the other two diver tourist areas, Brockville and Kingston follow Toby's lead.
James my boy for only having a dozen or so posts on this board you need to take a step back and read those posts. The content is good but the tone is not exactly warm and fuzzy especially for someone asking for favours. You have called someone a "village idiot" for no good reason, and you continue to produce statements like, "I cannot understand why you folks are completely missing my request,...Please present us with the documentation,...please cut the crap" Listen there bud we have no obligation to provide you with squat with language like that. Or how about "We have no time for it. We do not really have time for repeating this simple request continually either." Boy the only people who get information from me with that kind of tone are my four year old nephews.
A little bit of patience, humility, and gratitude might go a long way in helping us decide why we should just spoonfeed you with what you are looking for. I know it is not in the DIR fundamentals book so is that why all the demands with no thanks. Could it be that the DIR boys in Kingston have been exposed for having a huge potential point of failure called OUC air?? You know part of being human is just being able to say we have have our faults and can't be perfect all the time. I am sure you are an excellent diver with all those GUE certs but you know what if you want to attract others to your club you need ambassadors who show patience, tolerance, and a curiosity for the truth not rules, regulations, and dogma.
You know if you read the beginning of this thread two months ago I was where you are now, wondering about that blind spot in risk called diver air. I started asking questions on the board and people came forward and helped me out. Yes things at times were heated with Seahunter but pretty much civil most of the time. No one demanded to produce this document, etc. Instead of expecting to be spoonfed I spoke with people at Trace Analytics, Seatech, Maxxam, Cantest, US Navy, Duke University, Florida State U, Wayne State U, Fill Express, Lawrence Factor, TRI Environmental, Padi Canada, and may others. As my knowledge base on this subject increased I was able to assess the current state of air quality in Ontario and it is not a pretty site. Huge gaping holes in monitoring and compliance and safety. You will come to the same conclusion if you do your homework properly. People on the board including myself will help you discover the 'truth' and you will see that what we have been saying while not in a concise ready to read document is in fact the truth. I will be willing to wager a DIR-F book on that.
You ask to produce 'data' to back up every statement we make. Have you ever considered that some of the people on this board may actually be experts in some of these areas. Sneaky does a lot of this quality control stuff for a living and is well versed in these areas and has provided you with what you were looking for within 48 hours and yet ?SisterJ calls him a "Sneakybastard" when he is only trying to help you out. Again do you not see there might be a bit of reluctance to just offer up our knowledge on a plater with that kind of reception?
Ok lets get to some of your questions. As for data to back up my 10% quote lets just say I have compiled a long list from pounding the pavement and from people on the board PMing me about what certficates and compressor info shops have. I standby my statement that less than ten percent of Ontario fill stations are meeting MOL standards for shops with employees. How about this piece of 'data' just to keep you interested. The shop where you get your fills in Kingston is a five star padi shop so it should have quarterly analyses on file. Let me see OUC certs done three times a year, used military compressor, intake inch and a half eight feet tall, filters hand packed. How is that for some hard data on which I have based my stats?
Now what else did you want to know there James? If you go back to my first post to Sista's question I asked you to have a look at Seatech's compressed gas page
www.seatech.ns.ca where on the compressed breathing report you can read for free the CSA Z180.1-00 standard. Now go and get your OUC certicate and compare the two. What do you notice? There is no 'volatile non-methane hydrocarbons or volatile halogenated hydro carbons on the OUC cert which is part of the new Z180.1 standard as is using an accredited lab. Had you done this in the first place you would have seen this. You can get a copy of the CSA Z180.1-00 requirements but it will cost you about $55 here.
CSA Z180.1-00
Now Bubble Boy kindly pointed out to you that the OUC bottle does not contain a filter and so cannot access the particulates and condensed hydrocarbons (aka oil in your fill). There is a lot of recent medical info indicating particulates less than 10 microns are particulary bad even at 1 atm. As part of your homework you will have to familiarize yourself with ANDI, IANTD, CSA, and CGA Gd E standards as they all allow different amounts of this parameter both in quantity and particle size. This is where the term oxygen compatible air (OCA) comes into play and is especially important when breathing mixed gases at depth. A mixed gas diver should know all the ins and outs of OCA air. Try Mark at
www.fillexpress for info on this.
Here is a link to familiarize yourself about what the OUC doesn't do. And if they do claim they do then ask them about their orifice size.
oil and particulate analysis
Go to the link on oil and particulate analyisis to see what the OUC is not doing. Also take note at the bottom about PADI requirements for quarterly testing and by an accredited lab (A2LA) in the state of Florida.
Ok what else?
GC that is a piece of equipment for doing gas analysis called gas chromatograph. Another question you should ask the OUC when you call them is for a copy of their Scope of Analysis. Paul Fewer at Seatech has a great site so I will point you to his scope but all accredited labs have one.
Seatech Scope of Analysis
Notice it states the standard the scope is for and then for each parameter under the scope is listed the equipment used for the test. GC is gas chromatograph. Please ask OUC to produce this scope also showing the gravimetric filter for oil and particulates.
As we pointed out to you there are only three labs in the country who have the scope for the Z180.1-00. But don't take my word for it start phoning for the answers.
Bubble Boy pointed out DCIEM does not do testing but send their samples to Maxxam and Seatech. They may test the air in a diving fatality if requested to do so, but the test is actually done by you know who one of those accredited labs.
As for CO analysis in a diver's death yes it can be done on the blood but is time dependent. The half life of COHb is about five hours so after a day or so most will be gone. The problem has not been the technical aspects of testing, but not having the test done period in a fatality. If the air isn't checked in a death then one cannot say anything about the incidence of bad air in Ontario. Remember DAN data shows 40% of deaths are initial event 'unknown'. As I also pointed out earlier most jurisdictions do NOT routinely check the diver's air in the case of a fatality. That should be another message to get out to people,...it should always be checked. Families should demand it.
You ask about a methanizer. This is a piece of lab equipment added to the GC in order to allow reliable (check out nitrox thread re definition of reliable testing=accurate and precise) CO and CO2 readings in the lower range of concentrations exactly where the diver especially the mixed gas deep diver is most interested. The OUC has no way of producing reliable CO and CO2 measurements at the lower end without a methanizer. Your OUC certificate that says CO < 5ppm may actually be 25 ppm, you don't know and never will as no one checks on their quality of analysis or accuracy and precision. You get a fill thinking clean air and instead there is 25 ppm CO at 1 atm. Then you take that to 7 atm and you have an effective concentration of 175 ppm CO which will may kill an older guy with some occult heart disease but a 'young and bold' mixed gas pilot may get off only with a bad hangover. We won't even discuss here the synergisms that exist between CO, NO2, and likely SO2 which by the way were dropped off the 2000 CSA standard. And guess what, CO2 also for which the OUC can't provide reliable analyses in the lower end concentrations for the same reasons, potentiates CO toxicity. Proof, consider this from Dr. Penney the world's expert on CO toxicity
CO/Co2 synergisms
I can't remember which one from the DIR possy asked for proof about the OUC. I think from the info you have so far you will come to the same conclusion that we did however you could send in a bottle of air to the OUC from your fill station with a known concentration of CO contaminant and the same gas to an accredited lab. You can buy bottles of CO from safety supply stores of varying concentrations. They are used to calibrate Co detectors.
This would cost you a few bucks but the results might be surprising. Or you could say why bother just switch to an accredited lab as this is what the accreditation procedure ensures, accurate and precise results. But James if you really want to know that is the experiment to do.
So as Bubbleboy said due diligence is the message here. I did mine two months ago and you at your shop are just beginning but I can assure you the conclusion will be the same and if it is I want one of those DIR Fundamentals books
We do not want to withhold anything from you but a little softer tone in requesting that hard to comeby and confusing info would go a long way.
For the bonus question James have a look at the efficiency of activated charcoal and what it does and doesn't adsorb. You might be surprised at what you find and if you are real nice I will give you the link.
And now James a request of you. I would be very interested in seeing what GUE has to say with regards to their 'air' standard. Do they have a policy on this and could you please show us a link to this. For the agency that says it has thought through all potential 'points of failure' this GUE standard would be most interesting to compare with the other OCA standards from IANTD and ANDI. No rush and thanks in advance.
At your service boys bring on the questions,
Puffer
P.S. JimmyB and TomR can you pick one identity and stick with that as I am getting headache switching back and forth. :mean:
