Light "Commercial" Diving

[Thalassamania]

I'd never be responsible for putting a diver in contaminated water with just an AGA. I'll have to check, but if memory serves, NOAA rules do apply (at least technically).

 

[fstbttms]

Those federal sections (actually state adopted equivelants) apply to fstbttms as well. Too bad he doesn't know it yet.

Having now read OSHA Standards-CFR 29, section 1910 as it pertains to "commercial diving" and in particular, surfaced supplied air and SCUBA, it is clear that the spirit (if not the letter) of these OSHA regs are intended for hard hat diving operations and not for mom-and-pop dive services performing hull cleaning of pleasure craft in marinas.

My intention in this thread was not to promote unsafe diving procedures. I merely wanted to point out to the OP that thousands of divers across this country do exactly what he proposed (myself included), every single day with the blessing of the marinas they work in, without accident and certainly without blindly following onerous federal regulations clearly not intended for them.

Bottom line- my insurance company doesn't require me to work with a tender and that's good enough for me.

 

[muddiver]

I'm amazed that EPA's team does that, that violates NOAA rules for contaminated water diving ... even positive pressure AGA's don't cut it ... you need a Superlight mated to the suit with doubled exhaust wiskers.

A lot of dive teams in the Public Safety industry use teh AGA/OTS masks with Viking latex hooded dry suits in contaminated (or preceved to be) water all the time.

I have used the Kirby Morgan M-48 with the same dry suit and made completely dry dives as well. Would I as a hard-hat-owning-diver do so in a known contaminate, no, but I do think that the setup would work successfully if you are careful about the setup and mask-to-hood seal.

I have never used the Cressi mask as shown in the attached photo, but I agree that since it looks like a modified gas mask (kind of like the Mantis) I would not use it in icky water.

 

[fstbttms]

I have never used the Cressi mask as shown in the attached photo, but I agree that since it looks like a modified gas mask (kind of like the Mantis) I would not use it in icky water.

What are the criteria for contaminated water? It sounds like most of you consider harbors to fall into this category. I can't speak for any place but California, and San Francisco Bay in particular, but I certainly do not consider these bodies to be "contaminated". Are they pristine? No. But niether are they impaired to the point where Haz Mat gear need be used.

 

[Thalassamania]

Actually the Cressi (now I think handled by Poseidon) is a great cold water mask, but not much for pollution protection or comms (it uses a standard regulator mouthpiece inside the chin cup and has a separate mask compartment.

 

[muddiver]

I don't know of any regulatory list or criteria. Usually any chemical or biological substance that will melt you or make you sick is a reason to go with a more robust diving system. Viking Diving has a really good manual on contaminated water diving that covers the basics.

It use to be that most harbors were seriously poluted with gasoline, oil, deisel, lead, PCBs, and a veriety of cleaning chemicals and waste products. Most of that has been prevented or cleaned up. The concern now is the biological stuff that can make you sick that is found in harbors, bays, esturaries and any locan that the water does not circulate very much. They range from cryptospritum, and ecoli to your basic molds.

PCBs and lead are only an issue if the bottom is getting stirred up because teh sediment on the bottom of most harbors and marinas are contaminated, but the stuff settles out over time.

 

[Thalassamania]

I'd worry about the long terms effects of many multiple exposures to materials like PCBs that are many sediments now.

 

[fstbttms]

Well, I can't speak about any other type of commercial diving but as far as hull cleaning goes, I've been doing it for 15 years without any kind of health issue. Further, there are divers here been doing it a lot longer than I have and, to my knowledge, they have never had any problems. There are over 100 divers in the Bay Area cleaning boat bottoms year round and I have only rarely heard of anybody getting sick and it's almost always an ear infection or a digestive thing (presumably from swimming through some dickhead boater's black water.) I suspect if there was a chronic or acute health issue associated with this type of work, we'd know about it by now.

 

[Thalassamania]

You'd hope you would, but I know of no retrospective studies comparing cancer rates amongst such divers with a contol population, and it is rather unlikely that one will ever be done. As far as acute issues ... if one of your employees as much as came down with a cold, you're hanging out in the breeze on a workman's comp claim, and under some circumstances you could be facing the unlimited liability of the Jone's Act.

 

[fstbttms]

As far as acute issues ... if one of your employees as much as came down with a cold, you're hanging out in the breeze on a workman's comp claim, and under some circumstances you could be facing the unlimited liability of the Jone's Act.

That's why God and the IRS invented the Independant Contractor.