Oklahoma Administrative Code › Title 460 - Department of Mines › Chapter 25 - Oklahoma Explosives and Blasting Rules and Regulations › Subchapter 13 - Performance Standards › Section 460:25-13-5 - General requirements

Current through Vol. 41, No. 20, July 1, 2024
(a) Each certified blaster shall comply with all applicable State, Federal, and Local Laws in the use of explosives.
(b) All blasting operations shall be conducted by experienced, trained and competent persons who understand the hazards involved. Each person responsible for blasting operations shall possess a valid certificate as required by 63. O.S. (1995), Section 460:25-13-6.
(c) Blasting certification shall be carried by the blaster or shall be on file at the blasting area during the blasting operation.
(d) A blaster and at least one other person shall be present at the firing of any and all blasts.
(e) The blaster shall permit only authorized and qualified persons to handle and use explosives.
(f) Smoking, firearms, matches, open flame lamps, and other fires, flame or heat producing devices and sparks shall be prohibited in or near explosive magazines or while explosives are being handled, transported or used.
(g) No person shall be allowed to handle or use explosives while under the influence of intoxicating liquors, narcotics, or other dangerous drugs.
(h) All explosives shall be accounted for at all times. Explosives not being used shall be kept in a locked magazine, unavailable to persons not authorized to handle them. The employer shall maintain an inventory and use record of all explosives. ATF shall be notified of any loss, theft, or unauthorized entry into a magazine.
(i) No explosives or blasting agents shall be abandoned.
(j) No fire shall be fought where the fire is in imminent danger of contact with explosives. All employees shall be removed to a safe area and the fire area guarded against intruders.
(k) When blasting is done in congested areas or in proximity to a structure, railway, or highway, or any other installation that may be damaged, the blaster shall take special precautions in the loading, delaying, initiation, and confinement of each blast with mats or other methods so as to control the throw of fragments and not to exceed the peak particle velocity limits requirements of 460: 25-1319(a) at a structure.
(l) Employees authorized to prepare explosives charges or conduct blasting operations shall use every reasonable precaution including, but not limited to, visual and audible warning signals, flags, or barricades, to ensure employee safety.
(m) Blasting operations above ground shall be conducted between sunrise and sunset.
(n) Due precautions shall be taken to prevent accidental discharge of electric blasting caps from current induced by radar, radio transmitters, lightning, adjacent power lines, dust storms, or other sources of extraneous electricity. These precautions shall include:
(1) Detonators shall be short-circuited in holes which have been primed and shunted.
(2) The suspension of all blasting operations and removal of persons from the blasting area during the approach and progress of an electric storm;
(3) Signs and warnings shall be done in the following manner:
(A) The prominent display of adequate signs, warning against the use of mobile radio transmitters on all roads within 1,000 feet of blasting operations. Whenever adherence to the 1,000-foot distance would create an operational handicap, this distance may be modified so long as the modification is adequately designed in compliance with paragraph (5) of this subsection to prevent any premature firing of electric blasting caps.
(B) Specimens of signs which would meet the requirements of Section 460:25-138(p) are the following:
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(4) Ensuring that mobile radio transmitters and cellular phones which are less than 100 feet away from electric blasting caps, in other than original containers, shall be deenergized and effectively locked;
(5) Compliance with the recommendations of The Institute of the Makers of Explosives with regard to blasting in the vicinity of radio transmitters as stipulated in Radio Frequency Energy-A Potential Hazard in the Use of Electric Blasting Caps, IME Publication No. 20, March 1971.