The Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority has earned the American Public Power Association’s Safety Award of Excellence for safe operating practices in 2014. OMPA earned first place in the E category for utilities and agencies. Kenneth Roberts, chair of the APPA Safety Committee, presented the award to OMPA on May 18, during the association’s annual Engineering & Operations Technical Conference, held in Sacramento, California.
“Working day-in and day-out with the power of electricity is not something we take lightly. We can’t afford to,” said Roberts. “The recipients of this award understand the essential nature of safety in our line of work. It’s embedded in their work culture.”
More than 290 utilities entered the annual Safety Awards, which is the highest number of entrants in the history of the program. Entrants were placed in categories according to their number of worker hours and ranked based on the most incident-free records during 2014. The incidence rate, used to judge entries, is based on the number of work-related reportable injuries or illnesses and the number of worker-hours during 2014, as defined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
