HISTORY AND REGULATION OF SCIENTIFIC DIVING IN AUSTRALIA

Transcription

1 HISTORY AND REGULATION OF SCIENTIFIC DIVING IN AUSTRALIA Dr. Edward A. Drew President, Australian Scientific Divers Association c/o Australian Institute of Marine Science No. 3 PMB No.3 Townsville MC, Q Australia Australia a INTRODUCTION The first scientific diving in Australia was carried out under the direction of Sir Maurice Yonge at Low Isles during the Great Barrier Reef Expedition. They used the diving helmet, helmet, a buildings. piece of equipment initially developed by a Paris fire chief to allow access to smoke-filled buildings, and subsequently used by Professor Milne-Edwards to study marine biology down to 7.5 m (25 ft) in Sicily in 856. Similar equipment was used in the Caribbean in the 920's by William Beebe to depths of 8 m (60 ft) and was still being used by Jack Kitching to study kelp in Scotland in 940. Although the aqualung was brought to Australia in 952, early scientific diving work by our Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in 957 to study the pearl beds of northern Australia used Greek sponge divers with hard-hat diving equipment. Indeed. scientific diving in conjunction with both the pearl and abalone industries in Australia still uses the namely, hookah diving. Initially, use same equipment as the commercial operators in those industries, namely. spearfishermen, but scuba-based scientific diving in of the aqualung was restricted to recreational spearfishermen. in Australia began in the late 950's and blossomed during the 60 s. EARLY REGULATIONS Commercial diving was first regulated in Australia by Australian Standard CZ8-972 (Work in in Compressed Air), which applied to caisson workers as well as divers. The underwater component was and incorporated into a separate document, AS 2299 (Underwater Air Breathing Operations), in 979, 979. and this applied only to professional and/or commercial underwater operations. Scuba diving was limited in that document to 20-m depth. There were scientific divers on the committee which developed that Standard, but it was decided not to include such activities in its scope. Therefore, the scientific diving diving Standard. representatives were dropped from the committee. An amendment was subsequently SUbsequently added to that document, allowing short dives to 30 m on scuba specifically for research diving operations, presumably to allow the commercial divers to do work for scientists! START OF THE PRESENT PROBLEM Standards Australia's Committee SF7 began work on redrafting AS 2299 in 984. A document was issued to the commercial diving industry for public comment in late 986. This coincided with a number of important factors: there was a marked downturn in work for commercial divers; the federal government proposed that all states should begin to develop uniform OCcupational OCcupational Health and Safety legislation; environmental consultancy companies who used diving began began to to emerge; and the police rescue divers wanted clear regulations regulations to protect them against unreasonable operational demands. The result was that the public comment response from the state regulatory authorities in particular called for other forms of occupational diving, and especially rescue and and scientific diving, to be included in the scope of AS 2299 to provide a basis for regulation under future

2 International Pacifica Scientific Diving OH&S legislation. Presumably with an eye to obtaining more work f?r for commercial C?mmercial divers, particula.rly particula:ry in the area of consultancies but also within the research organisations, the Professional Divers Association of Australasia (PDM), a left-wing trade union exerting rigid closed-shop control over commercial diving, wholeheartedly supported this. So, without actually consulting the scientific diving community, their activities were su":,marily su~marily included simply by rewriting the Scope section of the new draft Standard. In early 987, whilst the scientific divers were themselves beginning to exercise a degree of self-regulation through the Australian Marine Sciences Association (AMSA), we learnt unofficially of this major change. We immediately contacted the 30 organisations we knew did scientific diving to determine the number of divers involved, their degree of activity, and their thoughts about a number of potentially threatening features of the draft Standard. We were able to attend the next meeting of SF7 as observers. Using this opportunity to present our case on behalf of the 000 scientific divers tentatively identified in the initial survey, we were able to get two representatives on that committee. One was from the Australian Marine Sciences Association and the other from the archaeologists' association, the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (AlMA). Standards Australia also suggested at that time that we should develop a preliminary draft for a standard which would be acceptable to scientific divers. STRATEGIES At this point we formed a National Working Group on Scientific Diving to coordinate the views of AMSA, AlMA, the universities, state government research organisations, and the consultants. AMSA also carried out a more detailed survey of scientific diving activities over an -year period (977 to 987), and the results from the responses from 203 divers are set out in Figure. Particularly interesting was the overwhelming emphasis on boat diving, the lack of surface support personnel, the large number of usually fairly shallow dives amounting to an average of 36 per diver per year, the large proportion of divers doing at least some decompression diving, a significant amount of hookah diving (8%), and the small number of accidents (set out in Table ). Armed with annual updates of such statistics (Table 2), an Australian Scientific and Archaeological Divers Register currently listing details of 984 individuals in 20 institutions throughout Australia (Figure 2), and a quarterly newsletter called Scientific Diving News, we have beeri been making some progress, some new friends, and some waves. In January 99, we also formed the Australian Scientific Divers Association to provide a unified voice for the purposes set out in Figure 3. Our data indicate that more than 40,000 scientific dives are carried out each year in Australia, with, on average, only one diving-related accident such as a bend. CURRENT SITUATION Despite this concerted activity and excellent safety record, we were unable to prevent the inclusion of scientific diving within the scope of AS 2299 (990) - Occupational Diving. This means that when this document is applied to us, as it now is by law in Queensland, scuba is limited to 20 m, lifelines and standby-divers are mandatory, no decompression diving is allowed on scuba, on-site recompression facilities must be available for all dives below 20 m (and some shallower), and training must be according to a separate Standard, AS 285, which has no provision for recognition of recreational training and certification. The Queensland situation was slightly eased late in 990 by a general exemption allowing scientific divers to use scuba to 30 m, dispense with lifelines, have the standby diver in the water (as the buddy), buddy). and combine the roles of dive supervisor and diver's attendant on the surface. This exemption applies to: "Employers who employ a diver in underwater diving operations solely for the gathering of environmental data or specimens for a research, environmental management or science education organisation or institution." 8

3 Drew: Scientific Diving in Australia Divers 203 TYPE of DIVE Divers 203 TYPE of DIVE Total dives \ o boat dives ~ shore dives night dives Total hours 9824 hours - BOAT SHORE NIGHT no watch watched watched watched o diver free ~ diver free ~ diver bouyedm Iffi] diver tethered 80 o boat dives of ~ shore dives 60 DIVE "- en night dives ::J o.i:: 40 I DEPTH ~o en~ "- () Q) 20 > '"0 =0 ~ eft. 0 o STATE o EMPLOYER metres HOURS o state E2l E2J federal ~ university consultant.,., DEPTH I I I I o -0 0_ metres 60 o C/) en "- ~ 40 ::J :::::l o. :.I:: 20 eft. ~ Figure. Summary of results from the ASMA Scientific Diving Survey, Survey

4 International Pacifica Scientific Diving Table. Scientific diving accidents from AMSA survey, Type Number Nature Subsequent diving Heart attack Bend Embolism Ear Ear Sinus Tooth Eye Hypoxia Salt water aspiration Blackout shock Broken rib Burn Sting Fatal Serious Serious Serious Permanently stopped Permanently stopped Not stopped Table 2. Annual updates for Australian scientific diving Respondents active divers % female Total dives Total hours Mean duration (mins) % from boat % at night.3.9 Accidents bend 0 other 5 Dives/active diver Dives/respondent 46.3 Total for 967 DIVERS in ASADR in 990 DIVES: 44,772 HOURS: 42,533 0

5 Drew: SCientific Diving in Australia I, I I I I \ ",,, \ WA 37 NT 27 SA 73 QlD OLD 49 \, (230) OTHERS CONSULTANTS MUNICIPAL 3 % %' --.r %' --.r_~ FEDERAL 2 % STATE 33% Figure 2. Distribution of Australian scientific divers by location and type of employer.

6 International Pacifica Scientific Diving Started In January 99 derived directly from the Australian Scientific and Archaeological Divers Register to provide an Independent national forum for scientific divers to maintain a strong mandate for negotiations about the regulation of scientific diving in Australia to maintain a national register to demonstrate: how many scientific divers there are who employs them and in what capacities the amount of scientific diving done using scuba and hookah the excellent safety record of scientific diving fully endorsed by AMSA and AlMA Figure 3. The mandate of the Australian Scientific Divers Association. Also, the AS 285 certification for Commercial Scuba Divers was available to us under a grandfather clause for a few months in 990. A 3-week, AUS$3,OOO AUS$3.000 course, only available so far at one locality in Australia, is now required to be able to use scuba to 20 m, and about 7 weeks, costing AUS$7,OOO, to go to 50 m using the mandatory Surface Supplied Breathing Apparatus (SSBA). However, despite the recent exemptions, a surface RCC is still required for dives below 20 m, whether on scuba or SSBA, as are diver-surface communications for all dives! Queensland now has two diving inspectors actively policing these regulations, together with other regulations which apply specifically to recreational diving instructors. Most other states will almost certainly call up AS 2299 when an accident occurs, although Western Australia is applying AS 2299 in advance to all work associated with the petroleum industry, industry. including inshore environmental surveys nowhere near oil platforms. Scientific divers visiting from overseas can still operate even in Queensland, provided they can demonstrate training and experience equivalent to AS 285, although the exact details of who can authorise them to dive are unclear as the scuba part of the Standard is still to be finalised. A number of visitors have already had to do a -week, AUS$,OOO upgrade course. 2

7 Drew: Scientific Diving in Australia Up to now, the 200 scientific divers in federal government organisations, such as the CSIRO and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), are exempt from such state laws, and the federal OH&S organisation, ComCare, has not yet adopted any particular regulations. However, this is set to change within the next year or so. Recent developments have included the formation of a special Standards Australia committee (MS53) to develop a Standard for Scientific Diving. That committee consisted mainly of representatives of organisations involved in scientific diving. On their recommendation, Standards Australia issued the draft developed by the National Working Group, generally known as the AMSA Standard, Standard. for public comment between May and July 99. It is basically a prescriptive subset of the UNESCO Code of Practice for Scientific Diving, with additions from various other national and organisational documents. It aims to set out in detail our current practices. which have, after all, allowed us to do a lot of diving very safely. As recompression facilities are relatively sparse in Australia (Figure 4). 4), one important recent addition we have made to this document is risk assessment criteria to decide when a surface recompression chamber is really necessary on site (Table 3 and Figure 5). Also. we have incorporated a training and certification scheme (Table 4) into this draft Standard to avoid the need for more than one regulatory document. The level of certification of Australian scientific divers is set out in Table 5. There is probably some room for improvement on the 6% % with only Basic scuba certification, although the majority of those have many years of experience. The Alfred Figure 4. Availability of recompression facilities in Australia 3

8 International Pacifica Scientific Diving Table 3. Risk-based assessment of recompression chamber requirement (as devised by Dr. Des Gorman). Gonnan). No dive shall be planned for a period of time and at a depth exceeding the limits in this table unless a recompression chamberis available. A - within 6 hours of the dive site B - within 2 hours of the dive site C - within 5 minutes of the dive site Depth A B C meters % risk limit.5% risk limit 5% risk Omit limit seawater (mins) (mins) (mins) Unfortunately, the work of committee MS53 has now stopped because another organisation, Worksafe Australia, declared that. that, as they, rather than Standards Australia, are now responsible for occupational standards, they will develop a single new, all~embracing, all7embracing, hazard-based standard for occupational diving. That initiative was to see the National Standards Commission, aided by a 2 person Expert Group, themselves supported by a much larger Reference Group including the old Standards Australia committees, create a betterand more widely applicable version of AS 2299 within a few months. Intensive lobbying by a wide range of non-commercial divers caused that initiative to collapse on 7 September 99, and it was replaced with a decision simply to call for further submissions from the various interested parties. Whilst the Worksafe Australia initiative rose and fell, the Queensland Government's Division of Workplace Health and Safety had become increasingly aware that the blanket application of AS 2299 was unsatisfactory for others beside the scientific divers. Eventually, after many complaints, culminating in heated interaction with the Underwater Visual Producers Association of Australasia, led by the well-known underwater photographers Ron and Valerie Taylor, they instituted a Review of the Regulation of Occupational Diving. The first information paper was circulated at exactly the same time as the Worksafe initiative faltered, and it contains a number of refreshing comments, including including the possibilities of having specific codes of practice for the different sectors of the industry, acceptance of recreational certifications, no requirement of surface personnel under safe and sheltered conditions, specific reference to hookah diving, and re-examination of the stringent medical requirements. 4

9 Drew: Scientific Diving in Australia minutes en... Q) '- l... -Q) E ~CC 0 ~O 5 20 L ~\~ '\~ -\~ ~CCL ~O GO up ~CC ~(jc L ~\~ '\~ -\~ 40 g0 " ~ 50 t-----j ~h--.-r-r-+--r-t'"t"'""c j Figure 5. Risk based assessment of recompression chamber requirement (from data in Table 3). 5

10 International Pacifica Scientific Diving Table 4. Proposed levels of certification for Australian scientific divers. AII ALL SCIENTIFIC DIVERS MUSTbe at least 8 years of age have current certificate of medical fitness to dive TRAINEE SCIENTIFIC DIVERS Certification to CMAS two-star SCIENTIFIC DIVERS As trainee, plus at least 5 h experience with at least 7 h below 0 m current recognized certification in CPR, oxygen resuscitation, first aid, knowledge of, and ability to use, decompression tables for single, combined and repetitive dives knowledge knowledge of the current diving regulations ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC DIVERS As scientific diver, plus at least 5 h additional experience with at least 7 h below 20 m certification equivalent to CMAS three-star other appropriate specialist certifications CMAS Scientific Diver Brevet recommended for international reciprocity DIVING OFFICERS certification equivalent to CMAS four-stars at least 3 years scientific diving experience VISITING SCIENTIFIC DIVERS To be temporarily assigned to VISITING TRAINEE, VISITING SCIENTIFIC or VISITING ADVANCED categories according to certification and log-books presented and subject to check-out dive. 6

11 Drew: Scientific SCientific Diving in Australia Table 5. Current diving certifications of Australian scientific divers. Recreational Basic/Open BasiC/Open water/c-card Advanced Divemaster Advanced divemaster Instructor Rescue/Research/Deep (max certification for 6%) (max certification for 3%) Commonwealth of Australia commercial card AS285. (scuba AS285.2 (SSBA AS285.3 (SSBA - 20 m) - 20 m) - 50m) 35 9 FUTURE POSSIBILITIES With all other discussions on diving regulations in Australia now virtually suspended, this Queensland initiative is the current focus. Can they at last produce some rational regulatory documents acceptable to all sectors of the occupational diving community, free from the overwhelming influence of the commercial diving industry and the PDM? PDAA? We shall certainly be advocating use of our own self-regulatory document which has already been declared acceptable by all our scientific divers. Furthermore, we want to ensure national uniformity and international reciprocity in an issue currently dominated by the concerns of a single state. We are therefore planning to hold a National Conference on the Regulation of the Diving Industry in April 992. This will involve all sectors of the industry, including the pearl, abalone, shell and other harvesting divers; the mariculture maintenance divers; the underwater photographers; the scientists and archaeologists; the environmental consultants; the engineering consultants; and, hopefully, the commercial and construction divers themselves. REFERENCES Draft Standard for Scientific Diving in Australia, 99, can be obtained from the author (Fax ). AS Occupational Diving, 990, can be obtained from Standards Australia, 80 Arthur Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060 (Fax ). Queensland Workplace Health and Safety Legislation and Regulations, 989, and Information Paper on the Review of Regulation of the Diving Industry (99), can be obtained from Division of Workplace Health and Safety, GPO Box 69, Brisbane, Q 400, Australia (Fax ). Diving Accident Management in Australia, 988, can be obtained from PADI Australia Pty Ltd., Unit /-7, Lyon Park Road. Road, North Ryde, Ryde. NSW 23. 7