June 7, 2023: McMINNVILLE, OR — McMinnville Water and Light has earned safety awards from Northwest Public Power Association and American Public Power Association. The APPA’s Safety Award of Excellence is a first-place award in the category for utilities with 60,000-109,999 worker-hours of annual worker exposure for safe operating practices in 2022. The NWPPA award is a first-place award for incident rate and severity rate for 80,001-160,000 hours of exposure in 2022.
“The safety of our employees is of the highest importance to McMinnville Water and Light,” said General Manager John Dietz. “We are proud to have our employees recognized for the professionalism and quality of work they provide to our company and our customers.”
Across the country, 283 utilities entered the annual APPA’s annual Safety Awards. Entrants were placed in categories according to their number of worker-hours and ranked based on incident-free records and overall state of their safety programs and culture during 2022. The incidence rate is based on the number of work-related reportable injuries or illnesses and the number of worker-hours during 2022, as defined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“Safety needs to be the first thing on every utility employee’s mind as they go about their work," said Jim Boyd, Chair of APPA’s Safety Committee and Electric Operations Safety Manager at Tacoma Power, Tacoma Washington. “The utilities honored by APPA for excellence in this area should be proud of the culture they have instilled in serving their communities.”
APPA is the voice of not-for-profit, community-owned utilities that power 2,000 towns and cities nationwide. NWPPA is an international association representing and serving more than 150 customer-owned, locally controlled utilities in the Western United States and Canada.