Col.Cluster once bubbled...
NTD tests it air through the OUC to the original Z180 standards. They had also offered to consider changing this practice, if Pufferfish can present his air testing case critically and candidly. The Pufferfish has yet to comply, as he cannot produce documentation that does not exists. The original Z180 standard is similar to the standards generally used through out the U.S. Ontario as it stands with the original Z180 has one of highest air quality standards in the world.
That is right Puffer, despite all your bs, these folks are still open to what you have to offer; if you can ever get around to offering it.
SNIPPED
Ah JP, aka Col. Cluster after seeing your bedside manner in full form today and you still have the gonadal fortitude to ask me for favours.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. And I have yet to comply with what, with who. Listen I don't really want to hijack this thread with more air quality stuff as there is a huge thread lurking around that I just might resurect to torture you, but since you have brought the issue up here, and high quality and GUE are supposed to be synonomous then lets just take a little peak under the hood again about the air testing issue at NTD or Northern Tech Divers, the designated GUE shop here in Canada. This may be an mini thesis so please bear with me.
Just for the record as you state NTD is using a lab called the OUC here in Ontario which is not recognized by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) and therefore is not an accredited lab. Accrediation is a process whereby the lab is inspected by an outside independent agency to ensure the results are reliable. One might say that the three accredited labs in Canada are held to 'rigorous standards' and as such are seen as the gold standard for which to test compressed breathing air in Canada. A test at the OUC costs $120 dollars and at an accredited lab $250. The new 2000 air standard in Canada is called Z180-00 and as part of the standard an accredited lab must be used. The old standard Z180-85 from 1985 and what GUE/NTD shop still uses (remember J valves and horsecollars) is what the OUC lab tries to meet, however they are missing a component called a methanizer on their gas chromotograph which is necessary to get reliable CO and CO2 readings in the low range exactly where a diver needs to be darn sure of the results. For example the GC without a methanizer will easily find a CO level of 100 ppm but will have trouble with 20 ppm. It may get reported as a 2 or 20 ppm. Not a problem at ambient pressure of 1 ATM, but 20 ppm CO in a mixed gas at 7 ATM is 140 ppm which is a problem. The biggest difference though between the new standard and the old is the required analysis for oil and particulates. The OUC does not offer this test at all. The 1985 Z180 standard to where NTD has decided to set their quality 'bar' therefore does not include an accredited lab, has unreliable CO results, and cannot test for oil or particulates in the fill. They set the bar high in teaching and gear but set it as low as possible with it comes to ensuring diver air quality. Inconsistent???
As an aside since CC has his facts incorrect, in the U.S the PADI/NAUI standard for compressed air is CGA Grade E (1997) which also has a standard listed of 5 mg/m3 for oil and particulates (in Canada this is 1 mg/m3). PADI by the way endorses a lab called Trace Analytics in Texas which is also accredited by an external agency to A2LA, a US equivalent of our SCC. So the only divers in North America heading to depths with mixed gas and not knowing at all the concentration of oil or particulates in their fills are those shops using the OUC lab to the antiquated 1985 standard and this includes GUE's Canadian centre of excellence. The rational for getting the O&P's down for the tech divers is two fold. One, oil and fine partics in the presence of oxygen rich mixtures are more likely to explode, and two the health effects of breathing hyperbaric particulates at 7 or 8 ATM is real bad. At those depths you want to be CO and partic free.
So folks I hope you can see the irony of what the situation is here in Canada. On the one hand we have an agency called GUE and represented by NTD which trots out the line about rigorous instructor standards , about being the cream of the crop in the dive world, excluding smokers from their courses, etc., but who are completely in the dark about the health risks of using a lab which is not accredited, cannot provide reliable CO levels, and can't do any oil or particulate analyses. And you call that striving to be the best or representing the cream of the crop? I call that hypocrisy. They then go on to criticize Canadian dive consumers as silly and cheap for not recognizing the high quality of the GUE product. And who is trying to save $500 bucks a year here on clearly inferior compressed air testing by the OUC at the expense of their own diver's health and safety. Yup it is very ironic GUE spends all this energy marketing itself as this elite group of guys and yet in one area of pre-dive planning called air quality analysis they completely drop the ball and have a real potential point of failure with a blind risk. May I suggest that Dr. Ranz write an equally thorough analysis for Quest entitled, "Compressed Air Contaminants: Acute Toxic Health Effects at High Partial Pressures, Do You Know Your Risk?"
CC listen if you pick up the phone and call the Ministry of Labor in Ottawa you will find your answers to the questions you pose. Sorry but no more favours from this end. Let those fingers do the walking.
What I really don't understand though is why you need me to provide anything at all to the GUE boys at NTD other than CSA Z180-00 which you have. That is the best standard money can buy in the country and I thought that is what GUE strived for in instruction, equipment, dive planning, etc. Just drop the comply with us, provide us with this or that regulation and DO IT RIGHT. Get your air tested by an accredited lab to the highest standard available here in Canada. You don't need the government to tell you to do so. Do it for the health benefits of the divers who dive on your team and purchase air to head to 7 ATM, do it because it is the right thing to do. To not do so just makes so much of the rhetoric about diver safety and quality eminating from GUE seem hollow. And don't worry about the shops not testing as we are working on that. Forget the MOL regulations and set the air testing bar at the same place you have it set for instruction, equipment, and all the rest. If GUE is going to lead the rest of us "pagans" then please do it right in all aspects of diver safety.
I will gladly 'comply' though and offer some documentation to the GUE A team as to why they really should put that DIR smoking article away and concentrate on oil and particulates at depth.
Here are some facts. It is the fine particulates one likely has to really be concerned about. Those are particles less than 2.5 microns. The highest 24 hour level in Ontario was 40 ug/m3 in the year 2000 (they are three years behind in processing the data) which was in Toronto north. Don't think Kingston is spared as they have had levels in the thirties on some days with the stuff coming up from Mike Ferrara's backyard.
This is the concentration then in your intake air. Unless your compressor has a hyperfilter it can only remove down to 10 microns so the entire particulate fraction enters the fill without a hyperfilter. Now you take a concentration of 40 ug/m3 down to recreation depth at 5 ATM and the 'pp pressure' of this particulate load is 200 ug/m3. The EPA considers anything over 65 a hazard to all groups not just the sensitive ones like kids and the elderly.
You ask what are the health effects. Please enjoy a few articles where the author's state their conflict of interests
Health Effects of Particulates on the CVS and Respiratory Systems
Fine Partic Vasoconstriction in Healthy Adults
And remember that is just the PMs(particulate matter) in the intake air. We haven't even considered what may be added from a hot and tired compressor. But that doesn't matter because with OUC testing they don't even analyse for this. Now that's a game of Russian roulette I am not willing to play. Enjoy the documentation guys.
Sorry Dan you have to restrain some of your fellas there. CC made me do it with that bedside manner of his
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