By ALEXANDER SIMONE

Staff writer

Before employees at Cooperative Grain and Supply in Hillsboro can work in the company’s grain facilities, they review a checklist, which is important to ensure proper safety measures are taken, grain coordinator Dick Tippin said.

“We do safety training with our employees and have different protocols in place,” he said. “Permits have to be filled out before they go into a potentially dangerous environment, and things that could harm you are locked out.”

Working in grain bins can be dangerous, but it’s preferable to having farmers putting themselves in the same situation, Tippin said.

“It’s not a danger to the public as far as that particular task,” he said. “We don’t want to send anyone into something that would be a hazardous environment.”

In addition to regular employee training, Tippin said it is helpful to have collaborative training with Hillsboro Fire Department.

Countryside Feed avoids risk of grain collapses or other hazards by having trained contractors go into the grain bins, Bill Fish said.

“We just don’t have people enter the grain bins because of that,” he said.

“The people who come out and clean or do stuff for us — they’re trained to do it.

They have all the harnesses and that, so they know what they’re doing.”

Having trained people on hand is a relief when the company starts making feed, Fish said.

“We make feed from 10 o’clock Sunday night, at this time of year, until 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon,” he said. “We run around the clock the whole time, and with the night crew, there are usually two or three guys here. You can’t take the chance.”