DOT violation, who do i turn to?

[m20power]

I recently discovered that a field I know of is getting tanks overfilled at a diveshop. The tanks are rated at 2400 psi but he gets them filled to 3000. I realize some people may not care about this but after having my friend almost die from an oxygen bottle that was mistreated and filled incorrectly.

I have checked DOTs website but I cant find out who to tell this to. Does anyone have advice for me. I dont want people to tell me to ignore this. Its over 20% overfilled and one day it will fail and someone will get hurt.

Thanks for the help.

-Joseph

[Muzikman]

Transportation Safety Institute
P.O. Box 25082
Oklahoma City, OK 73125-5050

Course and Schedule Information: (800) 858-2107

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[RRfireblade]

DOTs not going to do anything for you.

Call your local OSHA office and tell them you while you were in that business you were witness to unsafe practices and believe they should do an on sight inspection.

[hitech]

Call your local OSHA office and tell them you while you were in that business you were witness to unsafe practices...

That probably has the best chance of doing any good.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

[SlartyBartFast]

The OSHA is your best bet. Tell them about the dive shop and the paintball field.

Try the SCUBA asociations as well. Town permits and licences would be another avenue.

[craltal]

OSHA will get the job done. The SCUBA associations won't be able to do anything except possibly revoke their certification, but that is not going to happen without a lot of work on your part. OSHA will rip em a new one pretty quick, not to mention they canl take any necessary legal action.

[lopxtc]

You can try OSHA but good luck with them. Having delt with OSHA in the past both in the military and civilian worlds I wasnt very impressed with them. Everytime they would be coming onsite for inspections they would literally call a week in advance to let us know what day and time they would be coming by. We would spend the day or two before hand bringing everything up to code/spec and just go back to the way we were doing it before after they would leave.

Aaron

[Creative Mayhem]

I used to work at a dive shop, and I was incharge of doing hydrostatic testing. Without knowing the conditions in which the field has their tanks stored, bear in mind that there are a couple factors that could be at play here.

1- Some, if not all steel storage tanks can recive what is called a "+" certification, which allows the tank to be overpressurized from 2400 to 2640psi(not sure the percentage)

2- If the tanks are stored anywhere hot, or even warm, the pressure will increase due to the heat. Couple that with the "+" allowance, you can easily reach more than 3000psi. Again, without knowing any specifics i can't say much more than that.

Question, are these the large bulk storage cylinders or regular scuba tanks that are overpressurized?

[m20power]

they are 290 cuft bulk tanks. when we open them on a cool morning they are at 3000 to 3050 psi. The reason the field owner goes to a dive shop is because they will overfill the tanks. They charge him 30 dollars per 290 which is insane. Any oxygen store in the area only charges 15-20. Its also the owner of the dive shop doing it, not just a worker there.

I dont know why he dosent just get a booster system. It would cost him much less in the end.

He also dosent strap the tanks to the walls which I belive is also against ocea codes.

[RRfireblade]

You can try OSHA but good luck with them. Having delt with OSHA in the past both in the military and civilian worlds I wasnt very impressed with them. Everytime they would be coming onsite for inspections they would literally call a week in advance to let us know what day and time they would be coming by. We would spend the day or two before hand bringing everything up to code/spec and just go back to the way we were doing it before after they would leave.

Aaron

What they do in paintball..or are supposed to do, is spot inspections for on site records of Title 49; 172.700 HazMat certs for all employees associated with HP air. This hazardous material training is required for all cylinder handling employees within 90 days of hiring and every 3 years. Updated for 2005. It's a job specific training that has to be completed and then recorded and put on file.

Almost no one in the paintball industry complies with it and I believe it's a $2500 fine for each employee un-certified. (Don't hold to those exact figures)

[black tri star]

get'em by the balls yo

[m20power]

I live in Fresno Cali. Where is the closest place to get the certification.
Can you give me any idea about how long the class is, cost, ect.

Also if they are turned in for that is it likely that they will be prosecuted or is it something nobody cares about.

Its sad that someone can do stuff thats as dangerous as this and nobody cares, but i cant drive 5 miles over the limit without getting pulled over.

[RRfireblade]

In California check out PSICylinders.com, think that's it. They have all the info you need to get correctly certified to handle HP cylinders.

In most cases your just looking at fines, good sized fines but not more than that as far as I know.

[billmi]

The enforcement arm to talk to is your highway patrol/state troopers.

Overfilling the tanks isn't illegal, it's just stupid.

Transporting the tanks filled in violation of DOT standards on a federally funded highway is illegal, and it's usually state troopers/highway patrol (depending on how your state is set up) that handles that sort of enforcement.

Check your phone book, many communities offer anonymous law enforcement tip lines where you can leave a message explaining what they are doing, and how it is endangering people. They can pass it on to the appropriate agency to investigate or ignore it (depending on how busy they are and how concerned they are about it.)