Editor’s Note: We continue the series written by John Ballun, President and CEO of Val-Matic Valve and Manufacturing Corp. and released in 2016 as a book dedicated to the mentors who saved him and others from making costly mistakes in the field. Ballun’s enlightening and humorous stories are a popular read in the valve world.

The central character, Duke Waters, is a compilation of Ballun’s mentors; the stories are about what he learned. In this fifth installment, while out playing golf Duke and Johnny B notice the course’s irrigation system acting up and offer a solution.

Herbert William Heinrich, author of Industrial Accident Prevention, A Scientific Approach, devised a way of understanding the relationship between unsafe acts and workplace injuries. He illustrated this with a triangle diagram, such as the version shown in Figure 1.

Here, for every 600 unsafe acts 30 near misses are likely to occur, 10 minor injuries and one major injury. The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics reports 2,236 work-related fatalities in 2017 due to falls, contact with objects and equipment, exposure to harmful substances or environments, and fires and explosions. In the same year, workers experienced 882,700 injuries that caused them to miss work afterward.

We continue the series written by John Ballun, President and CEO of Val-Matic Valve and Manufacturing Corp., and released in 2016 as a book dedicated to the mentors that saved him and others from making costly mistakes in the field. Ballun’s enlightening and humorous stories are a popular read in the valve world.

The central character, Duke Waters, is a compilation of Ballun’s mentors; the stories are about what he learned. In this fourth installment, Duke helps Johnny B. look at problems with some new butterfly valves that are not closing properly. VALVEmagazine.com will be running other chapters over the coming months.

I was sent over to Tempe, Arizona, to inspect a couple dozen leaky 12-inch butterfly valves at a new water reclamation plant, which means they are recycling wastewater there. The request seemed odd because the butterfly valves were only nine months old and should have been operating just fine.

Speakers from end-user companies, consultants and repair/maintenance companies, as well as valve manufacturers and their suppliers, presented at the Valve World Americas conference. Eighteen sessions over two days included presentations and panel discussions of a wide variety of topics such as fugitive emissions, severe applications, valve design, pipeline valves, testing and maintenance, and fasteners.