8.
EDTC WORKSHOP 2010
The Chairman reported that he had attended a meeting with
Mrs. Angelilli in Roma in company with Pasquale Longobardi,
Giovanni Esentato and OC Andersen and that she had agreed to
make available premises within the European Union facilities
in Brussels on May 11th and 12th 2012.
Facilities will be available between 1500 and 1800 on May 11th
and between 0900 and 1300 on May 12th. He also
advised that arrangement had been made for a meeting in
Brussels to assess the facilities and plan the
event.
Action: Claus Mayer
The facilities available could accommodate up to 120 persons
and it was the intension to invite participation from all
member countries. However, because of the total limitation
of a 120 it might be necessary to limit participation from
each country in order to provide equal opportunities to all
member states. Collaboration with each country’s Authority
would thus be sought in order to “Quality Control” and make
sure that representation was maximised.
The Workshop would focus on “Freedom of Movement” (of Diving
personnel) and would primarily address onshore/inshore
diving. In order to provide value for the countries EDTC was
seeking to provide an opportunity for participants to make
presentations stands either in the EU Commissions facility,
alternatively in a nearby hotel.
Roland vanden Eede offered to assist the arrangement
committee locally as he was based in Brussels.
9.
CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
The Chairman reported that he had spent most of the year in
China, Hong Kong and Singapore dealing with tunnelling
project. As there was few if any regulation available to
that effect locally he had introduced the EDTC Standards to
local authorities. These had in generally been well
received.
Diving operations (tunnelling) had been performed based on
his companies internal procedures which in addition to the
EDTC Standard were build on German, HSE, IMCA and Norwegian
legislation and guidelines.
Certification of Divers:
He reported that false diving certificates were circulating
in the business and some schools were issuing certificates
claiming to be in compliance with standards proving to be
incorrect when divers holding the certificates were
interviewed. There were also schools claiming to provide
diver training allowing the students to work anywhere in
Europe, only to find out that this was not the case when
they tried to obtain employment.
The meeting was informed that EU Directive 2005/56 is being
changed strengthening the right of free movement within EU
and also limiting individual countries right to refuse
employment of such personnel. With the current status of
diving schools issuing certificates, some on behalf of
national Authorities, other on behalf of an association
(such as IDSA) control with diver certification would
continue to be a problem and could potentially expose
employer of divers to legal prosecution.
EDTC’s and the member contractors preferences had always
been for diving certificates to be issued by National
Authorities, or alternatively by an accredited agency on
behalf of the National Authority, as this should ensure
necessary control with the providers of such training (Which
is already the case for many of the IDSA Schools). Standards
for such trainings should also preferably be National
Standards, which should be based on the EDTC high level
standard, supported by a more detailed standard (such as
IDSA) and amended to take into account National
Requirements.
IDSA claimed to have an audit scheme in place where audits
were performed by an independent IDSA member. This however
still left to potential for questioning the individual’s
independence and it was suggested that the scheme would be
better served by employing an accredited professional third
party Auditor (National Standards Organisation) assisted by
Technical Auditors provided by IDSA or others, as this would
improve the credibility of such audits.
Some countries (like the UK) currently publish a list of
certificates acceptable to them and it was suggested that
EDTC could perhaps have a similar approach. Although it was
agreed that it was not EDTC’s role to identify and publish a
list of acceptable certificates. It was agreed that it would
be useful to collect information on diver training in EDTC
member countries. As a result it was proposed by Olav Hauso
that EDTC request the Government Representative for a
Compliance Statement with the EDTC Standard as this would
produce a useful starting point for the exercise. Eric
Albier’ accepted to act as a coordinator for progressing
this.
Action:
Eric Albier’
In the long run the introduction of Standard applicable to
all countries would have to be done through establishment of
European CEN Standard (or equivalent). This would require at
least another 4-5 countries to set up such working parties.
This would probably best be achieved by the Government
Representatives assisted by the other EDTC members, but was
likely to take years to achieve. It was noted that Italy had
developed an Italian diving standard.
Action:
Chairman
Petition to the EU:
The Chairman referred the petition made Mr. Longstreath
addressed to all EDTC members. The EDTC members shared the
passion for the topic and agreed that not all parts of the
diving industry were sufficiently regulated and/or that
regulations wear not being adhered to by all contractors and
individuals engaged in parts of the industry.
The EDTC were currently planning a conference for May 2012
in Brussels, Belgium, where inland/inshore regulations
across Europe would be the topic.
EDTC standards had been published and a number of European
countries had actually adopted the standards into their
national regulations. However, both old and new members of
the EU have not yet reached this status as it would normally
take some years to implement the background framework and
such regulations within the individual country. The
conference would be aimed at identifying the discrepancies
and a possible way ahead.
As for signing the petition; some EDTC members were against
signing it, other for, and it was thus jointly agreed in the
meeting that the individual EDTC members were free to take
whatever actions that they think was appropriate.
10.
REPORT FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MEDICAL SUBCOMMITTEE
Jurg Wendling provided the following report: Since our last
EDTC-meeting a year ago in Prague the project of the
revision of training standards for physicians in diving and
hyperbaric medicine had been actively pushed forward and a
few important decision have led to the fact that we had the
chance today to endorse the new version of the common
standards of EDTC and ECHM.
The first step was the approval of the Training Objectives
that have been carefully prepared by our past president of
EDTC Professor David Elliott. Furthermore, the ECHM
Executive Board has accepted that a revision should be done
and that Jacek Kot together with me (Jurg Wendling) as
delegates of the two organisations should prepare a draft
which has to be endorsed by both committees as soon as
possible. We then worked intensively, sent out the drafts in
the two organisations, had e-mail feedbacks, and
surprisingly there was not much opposition, no important
criticism. This made it possible that during the European
Congress for diving and hyperbaric medicine in Gdansk 3
weeks ago first the ECHM endorsed the developed proposal of
the new standard and then the EDTC medical group has
discussed and approved the same paper and recommends that
EDTC members approve the Standard during this meeting.
Even if we had to accept minor deviations from what we
planned originally, the EDTC medical group was more than
happy with what we have achieved and we hope that the EDTC
members will endorse the proposal so that it can get active
the day after the decision.
The members of EDTC have been informed by e-mail two weeks
before the meeting and the edited final version has been
sent to the members in the last days. What are the changes
compared to our first version of 1999?
1)
The training program has got much more consistent as
all the topics are described in detail by the "Training
Objectives",
2)
Diving medicine physicians will be trained as before
in modular way, while Level I is the "Medical Examiner of
Divers", more or less unchanged compared to the first
version. Level II is the diving medicine physician. The
course module II Diving Medicine has somehow got bigger, now
being 80 hours whereas these hours may be partly web-based
trainings, seminars or other forms of didactic training. At
the end of the diving medicine course participants will get
a diploma saying that they have passed successfully that
course,
3)
The new thing however is that the doctors needed for
the diving industry will need a certification of a slightly
higher level called "Certificate of competence as Diving
Medical Advisor". To achieve this certificate they need to
have proof of more practical experience and more advanced
training. As these additional training units can only
exceptionally be achieved by a professional activity (for
instance in Navy or a very big institution), we have decided
to offer a module "Advanced professional diving medicine"
which should last about a week and which should be an
intensive course of practical work together with some
seminars for risk analysis and dive planning for technical
diving. It will also include field first aid in onsite
chambers as it is sometimes necessary in saturation,
4)
The doctors further need some basic competence in
occupational medicine, trauma care and emergency medicine,
5)
The certificate of competence will be limited in time
so that after a period of 3-5 years recertification will be
necessary.
In order to control the practical work and in order to allow
individual careers with some partial experience in
professional sites, we have decided to introduce a logbook
which is a system in use now in most of the medical
specialties in most of the countries in Europe. This logbook
can be used even after the certification for the renewal,
whereas all the continuous medical education points may be
listed.
A
few problems are still to be solved, namely the location and
administration of the databank where names and
identification data of the certified doctors are stored, the
way how the final assessment should be performed, the Board
of experts which will be responsible for approval of
certification. These will be our next steps and I will
inform the committee as soon as possible what we have
achieved.
Discussions:
Some Members of EDTC, which had received copies of the
proposed standard initially some weeks ago with an update
only just before the meeting, were initially reluctant to
endorse the new standard at such a short notice. However,
after a lengthy discussion and numerous of appeals by
medical members of the EDTC Committee all supporting the new
standard, the members approved the document under the
condition that it would be possible to propose changes and
that the document will be amended as necessary.
The standard must thus be regarded as a minimum standard and
a “live document” subject to revision on request from any of
the parties to the document. This would not hinder any
country to apply higher standards if they deem it necessary.
It was envisaged that revisions might be considered
probably, every second year.
11.
WINDFARM DIVING REGULATIONS
Several of the members had proposed that EDTC should be
engage in drawing up diving guidelines for wind farms as
current legislation in many cases did not apply to
underwater work as wind farms may be outside territorial
water nor covered by offshore regulations.
Some members were of the opinion that such activities could
use existing regulation (although they have no legal
validity outside the 4 or 12 Nautical Mile borders) while
others were of the opinion that new regulations were
necessary to provide an even playing field and safeguard
personnel engaged in development of wind farms.
Consequently a working part consisting of the following
members were appointed:
·
Jørn Ryberg, Sweden (Industry),
·
Jane Bugler, (IMCA),
·
Palle Kristensen, Denmark (Government),
·
Chris Sherman, United Kingdom (Government)
·
Roger O’ Kane, United Kingdom (Industry)
·
Leo Lagarde, the Netherlands (Industry).
The Working Party was requested to submit their report for
the next members meeting.
12.
REPORT FROM THE NATIONAL REGULATIONS PROJECT
The Chairman of the National Regulations Committee (Claus
Mayer) reported that the committee had received national
regulations from some 14 countries. However, as some of the
document was received almost 3 years ago, and it is known
that several countries had, or were about to introduce new
regulation he requested all members to resubmit their
national regulations. This applied even to draft
regulations.
These documents would form a basis for the 2012 conference
in Brussels and it would therefore be appreciated if they
could be passed on as soon as possible.
He requested that these documents be sent to himself
(claus.mayer@nordseetaucher.de),
the subcommittee secretary (staffan.littorin@mil.se)
and Roger O’ Kane (secretary@adc-uk.info).
Actions: All
13.
NATIONAL REPORTS
Please note that some of the presentations referred to below
have been attached to this Minute.
a)
IMCA (Jane Bugler)
Jane Bugler advised that the following IMCA Guidelines had
been issued since the last meeting:
·
IMCA D 045: Safe Use of Electricity Underwater,
·
IMCA D 046: Guidance on Operational Communication,
·
IMCA D 042: Rev. 1 Diver and ROV Concrete Mattress
Installation,
·
IMCA D 003: Rev. 1 Guideline for Oxy-arc Cutting,
·
IMCA D 011: Rev. 1 Annual Auditing of Dive System
·
And that the following info notes had been issued: Info Note
on Diver Gas Supply, Info Note on NDE Testing of Gas
Cylinders, Info Note on Competence of Diving System
Auditors.
She further advised that the following guidelines are in the
process of beuing updated:
·
DESIGN D 023 & D 024 in process of finalisation,
·
Diving Supervisor Manual (IMCA D 022),
·
Acrylic Plastic Viewports,
·
Requirement for minimum quantity of gas (AODC 014),
·
NURGOD (IMCA D 034,
·
High Pressure Water Jetting (AODC 049).
She also advised that the following new documents were under
development:
·
Guidance for Hyperbaric Evacuation Systems,
·
Guidance for PLC based Diving Systems (supplement to IMCA D
024),
·
Guidance on Nitrox Diving,
·
Guidance on diving in Artic Conditions.
Diving Supervisory Scheme:
·
The mutual recognition with ADAS has now been extended to
include LST’s,
·
The mutual recognition with DCBC has been extended to
include Diving Supervisors,
·
IMCA is working with ADAS, DCBC and SA DOL on developing a
common exam question database.
Other work includes:
·
Update of competence table for diving personnel,
·
Survey on numbers of divers working in each Region,
·
Review of Diver Medic course syllabus,
·
Guidance to Marine Contractors re undertaking diving
operations on their vessels (IMCA M 210),
·
Guidance on the use of simulators in training (IMCA C 014
Rev.1),
She also advised that IMCA Guidance document is now
available as free downloads from the IMCA website (pdf.
formats),
That a database for Common Marine Inspection Documents (CMID’s)
are available from:
www.imcacmid.com
and
That the annual IMCA Marine & Diving seminar 2011 will be
held in New Orleans November 9-10th 2011.
b)
Italy (Giovanni Esentato)
Giovanni Esentato handed out a CD containing the new Italian
Diving Regulations (UNI Rule 11366) and advised that they
had been adopted by Italy last year after some 4 years
bringing together Italian Diving Contractors (AISI), UNI,
the Italian Regulators Authority and representatives from
the Clients such as Saipem and Snam. They have also been
adopted by the Italian Coast Guard. The rules were now also
available in English.
The new diving rules were structured on IMCA and EDTC
Guidelines.
The Italian delegation strongly supported the work started
by Claus Mayer, Pasquale Longobardi and OC Andersen towards
the European Parliament represented by Mrs. Angelilli and
hope that this would eventually lead to a common recognised
European Standard
c)
Sweden (Staffan Littorin)
Staffan Littorin advised that new Swedish Diving Regulations
had been issued by the Swedish Work Environment Authority
and that it is available from:
www.av.se/inenglish.
These regulations were specific on certificate requirements
covering
4 types of diving certificates, namely:
·
S
30 for SCUBA to 30msw,
·
A
40 for SCUBA to 40msw including surface supply,
·
H
30 for Hard Hat Diving to 30msw, and
·
B
50 for Hard Hat Diving to 50msw.
and on Dive Team, where minimum requirements were for a 3
man team.
d)
Norway (Olav Hauso)
Olav Hauso reported that activity levels for saturation
diving was at 52.537 hours in saturation for 2010, a figure
approximately averaging the activity the last few years.
There have been 2 accidents, both avoidable with better
follow-up routines:
·
A
load hitting a divers leg,
·
Dehydration followed by headache.
And 2 near misses:
·
Lowering of Diving Bell – hitting bottom,
·
Problems in activating the SLS (Semi Closed Bail-out
System).
Activities for surface supplied diving were recorded at a
low 798 man-hours in water.
He also advised that a new NORSOK Standard U-103 had been
implemented covering Inshore/Onshore Diving regulations
applicable for diving work on petroleum plants (including
shore approaches for pipelines).
The PSA had now handed over issuing of Diving Certificates
to Norsk Kompetanseregister (NKR) who would issue
certificates on their behalf.
Last year some 140+ certificates were issued to candidates
from the Oslo School (NYD) and perhaps 10-15 from the
Government School in Berge.
PSA focus area were:
·
New vessels, new technology,
·
Control rooms and equipments (Process control/PLC System),
·
Lay-out and ergonomic (EN ISO Standard 11064),
·
Training of personnel (and in particular Operators and
Technicians).
OC Andersen
OC Andersen gave a short presentation on “Seven Havila” the
latest state-of-the-art Diving Support Vessel recently
commissioned into the Subsea 7 fleet. A copy of the
presentation has been appended to the Minute.
e)
Spain (Jordi Desola)
Reported that there were no members from Spain representing
the Government or the Industry. However 4-5 good hyperbaric
centres had been established throughout Spain in the last
few years.
As a result of this new safety regulations were being
prepared and were expected to be implemented within the next
4-6 months. He however regretted to report that these
regulations have been developed with no co-operation or
consultation with the industry.
f)
Turkey (Murat Egi)
Advised that they saw increasing amount of false diving
certificates and suggested that there should be a way of
checking the validity across Europe.
He also advised Turkey would host a conference on Saturation
Diving in March 2012 and invited interesting parties to
participate. He would provide further information on
request.
g)
United Kingdom (Chris Sherman)
With reference to other report advised that validity of UK
issued certificates could be checked by e-mail or phone to
his department. United Kingdom had chosen not to let the
public have access to the computerised database due to data
laws, and to protect the database from being hacked into.
He reported that the general economic situation had an
effect in all sectors in the UK with training school busy
but slowing down, and that the infrastructures were aging
(including personnel). There was still however activities
related to development of wind farms.
He further reported on 2 fatalities, one in recreational
diving where a person using a Re-breather in a “try dive”
dies. The other involving a shellfish diver that failed to
surface after a dive.
He also reported on HSE Certificates issued and the diving
school activities in the UK. These statistics had been
appended to this Minute for information.
The following publications were now available:
·
HSE Research Report 735 issued,
·
Report on noise exposure to commercial divers,
·
Guidance Note DVIS 14 published,
·
Research on re-breathers (RR 871) Assessment of manual
operation and emergency procedures for closed circuit
re-breather (human factors and ergonomics).
These are available from;
http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/index.htm
and
Diving Information Sheets from: www.hse.gov.uk./pubns/dveindx.htm
h)
IDSA (Alan Bax)
Alan Bax reported that IDSA established in 1982 had
developed guidance handbook for provision of specialised
diving training and were in the process of producing a Code
of Diver training Practice.
IDSA as independent from any government or affiliation and
performed audits of its members on frequent intervals. These
audits were however not compulsory, but based on schools
requesting an audit.
IDSA proposed the development of Principles of an
International Diving Certification Scheme.
14.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Members commented that no financial reports had been
submitted for the last few meetings.
The Secretary advised that this had been discussed in the
previous days Board Meeting, and made the following account
of the situation: Since taking over as Treasurer it had been
problematic to correspond to the Dutch Bank (Based in Delft)
and in spit of making verbal contact by phone they never
responded to letter with request for payments of bills. Nor
had any bank statements been received.
As a result running cost such as postage, communication etc
had been carried by Acergy (now Subsea7) and that cost
associated with the EDTC web page as well as some other
smaller expenses had been covered the Secretary personally.
This amounted to some GPB 1.000 over the years. However, the
Copenhagen meeting resulted in a surplus of approximately
the same amount and as a result he had received compensation
for his expenses from this amount.
In the Board Meeting it had been agreed that Claus Mayer
will set up a bank account with a major European Bank that
would provide telebanking, and as such easier access to the
account (which stands at about GPM 4000+). This may require
some assistance from the Dutch delegation. Once this had
been completed the Board will make up a Financial Report for
review by the membership.
Action:
Claus Mayer
15.
ELECTION
The Secretary advised that as he was retiring from Subsea 7
by October 31st he was no longer able to fulfil
the position of Secretary, but had agreed to compile the
Minutes from this meeting.
This meant that there were 3 positions up for election in
this meeting. In addition to the 2 members of the Board up
for election (Claus Mayer and Jørn Ryberg), both of whom had
agreed to continue on the Board; Roger O’ Kane had been
nominated and agreed to serve if elected.
Consequently all 3 were elected to serve on the new Board.
During the afternoon session of the meeting the Secretary
received 2 nominations for Chairman, namely for the current
Chairman Claus Mayer and Jørn Rydberg.
A ballot was held and resulted in Jørn Ryberg being elected
as the new Chairman.
The new Board consequently are as follows:
Chairman: Jørn Ryberg,
Vice Chairman: Jurg Wendling,
Member: Jean Bugler,
Member: Claus Mayer,
Member: Pasquale Longobardi,
Member: Roger O’ Kane
Post meeting note: In a teleconference held following the
meeting Roger O’ Kane was nominated and accepted the
position of Secretary.
16.
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting would be held in Oslo in September/October
2012 by invitation of Dag Wroldsen of IDSA. A finite date
would be announced later.
17.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The Board and Members thanked the French Delegation for an
excellent arrangement for the meeting and a very pleasant
dinner the night before.
And as a post meeting note: An enjoyable boat trip on
Saturday.
