Achieving an Accident-Free Work Environment

ach year, we strive as an organization to achieve an accident-free work environment for all Entergy employees and contractors. We believe even one accident is too many, and we cannot be satisfied until we reach our ultimate target of zero accidents. Since 1998, we have built a strong safety culture with policies, systems and metrics that make a clear statement: safety is everyone’s responsibility. In every Entergy location, we track our safety performance, focus our attention and resources on areas that need improvement and celebrate safety accomplishments.

2009: The Safest Year in Entergy’s History

While one accident is too many, we are pleased with the progress we’ve made toward our target of zero accidents. In 1998, when we started to build a focus on safety, we recorded 324 employee accidents. And in 2001, the first year that Entergy tracked contractor accidents, we recorded 363 contractor accidents. In 2009, we recorded 93 employee accidents, 90 contractor accidents and no fatalities. It was the safest year in Entergy history, with the fewest number of accidents and, most importantly, no fatalities.

Our excellent safety performance in 2009 is representative of the steady progress we have made in the past 11 years toward achieving an accident-free work environment. In fact, in seven of the past 10 years, we’ve established new safety records.

Highlights of our 2009 safety performance include:

• We achieved a Lost Work Day Incident Rate (LWDIR) of 0.20 for Entergy employees, the lowest rate in Entergy’s history. LWDIR measures the annual lost time and restricted duty cases per 100 employees. The LWDIR for contractors was 0.41 in 2009, which was up from 0.34 in 2008.
• The Dow Jones Sustainability Index awarded Entergy its highest score on safety, recognizing our safety program as the best in the utility industry.
• We increased the number of Entergy work sites that have earned Star status under the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Voluntary Protection Program to approximately 70. For an industrial work site, this represents the highest possible safety rating from the most prestigious workplace safety and health recognition program in the U.S.
• Our safety performance was ranked in the top quartile by a Southeastern Electric Exchange study benchmarking of 17 participating utility companies.

More details on our 2009 safety performance, including the progress we’ve made in implementing our comprehensive five-year safety plan, as well as our efforts to prepare for possible pandemic outbreaks, are included in this section of our sustainability report.

Making Safety Everyone’s Responsibility

We believe safety is everyone’s job. Our policies, systems and metrics are designed to reward safe behaviors and place responsibility for safety with every individual employee and contractor. We regularly implement safety campaigns to raise awareness and keep employees focused on safety. And we regularly report our safety performance metrics to employees to encourage their active involvement in our safety programs.

When we identify a systemic cause for accidents, we implement structured programs to address that cause. When we cannot find a systemic cause for an accident trend, we ask our employees to focus their attention on ways to help bend that trend. For example, we incur more accidents in the first three months of each year than we do in any other three-month period. While we have not been able to identify a systemic cause, we have made employees aware of this pattern and asked for heightened safety awareness during this high-risk time period.

Enlisting the resourcefulness of every employee builds a powerful safety culture, which makes our programs stronger and more effective. Entergy’s safety culture is one of its most distinctive and valuable strengths.

Implementing a Comprehensive Safety Plan

In 2007 we set a five-year goal of eliminating fatalities and reducing the LWDIR for Entergy employees and contractors by 50 percent. Our comprehensive safety plan includes six initiatives that are focused on the major root causes of on-the-job accidents. The six initiatives are:

• Hazard assessments/barriers, which focuses on the complete elimination of all major injuries and work-related fatalities by constructing as many barriers as feasible between employees and the hazardous condition.
• Human performance, which strives to reduce unsafe situations by changing human performance and reducing human errors.
• Ergonomics, which is geared toward reducing injuries caused by overexertion, awkward postures and/or repetitive motion.
• Contractor safety, which strives to create the same safe work environments for contractors that exist for Entergy employees.
• Active safety participation and ownership, which focuses on getting all employees continuously engaged in safe practices from entry level to senior management.
• Safety information management system, which will allow employees to track and trend data in a proactive manner with the ultimate goal of being able to predict and thereby prevent accidents before they occur.

Each initiative has an executive sponsor, assigned team members and a detailed timeline. In the first three years of implementing the plan, we have seen tangible improvements. For example, ergonomic-related accidents are no longer predominant as they were in 2007. We implemented a structured approach to reducing ergonomic injuries in both field and office environments that includes on-site assessments, increased employee awareness and training.

In 2009, our barriers team completed its work assessing gaps and implementing best practices. The team’s goal is to eliminate all fatalities and serious injuries caused by electrical contacts, burns, flashes, falling from elevations and “struck by” accidents. Among its suggestions are erecting barricades around work areas to reduce “struck by” accidents, using “buck squeeze” equipment when climbing poles to reduce falls and using added cover-up protection when working on energized primary equipment to reduce electrical contact.

Preparing for Pandemic Events

In light of the health concerns raised by the outbreak of H1N1 flu in 2009, Entergy revised its health planning and preparation to manage any pandemic event regardless of the specific agent. We developed a new plan-activation matrix that is based on Entergy’s historical absenteeism pattern. We believe this provides a more realistic activation scenario than following the World Health Organization phase-alert matrix.

We also developed scenarios for responding to centrally issued pandemic-readiness levels and led business functions through simulated drills. We captured lessons learned from the drills and enhanced our pandemic-readiness plans for all our business functions. We also increased our on-hand inventories of personal protection equipment. We will continue to enhance and update our pandemic preparedness as conditions warrant.

Earning OSHA VPP Star Status

We monitor our safety performance in ways that are consistent with OSHA VPP. Entergy work sites are encouraged, but not required, to apply for certification under OSHA VPP. Arkansas Nuclear One, Waterford 3 and River Bend Station were the first three nuclear plants in the U.S. to achieve Star status in the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program, which is the highest rating in the most prestigious U.S. workplace safety and health recognition program.

Achieving VPP Star status is an employee-driven achievement. It speaks to the commitment of our employees as well as the policies, systems and metrics that form Entergy’s safety culture. In total, approximately 70 of Entergy’s work sites have achieved OSHA VPP Star status, including nearly 20 fossil sites and more than 40 transmission and distribution sites. This represents about 57 percent of the Entergy sites that can feasibly file for VPP certification.

Raising Public Safety Awareness

Each year, electrical incidents in the home kill hundreds of people in the U.S. and injure more than 10,000 people. In work settings, electricity causes more than 300 deaths each year. Yet most electrical injuries can be avoided. Entergy utility operating companies maintain websites designed to educate the public on how to safely use and work around electricity. The sites offer tips, stories and interactive quizzes that make it easy to learn about how to stay safe around electricity. There is a “Living Dangerously Quiz,” basic safety information, tips for do-it-yourself indoor and outdoor projects and case studies that can help people learn from the mistakes of others. In addition, Entergy’s Electrical Safety World offers kids, parents and teachers a fun way to learn about electrical safety.

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