Comment by ISL

Great EH&S people are amazing.

At the root of researchers' reactions to EH&S are two things:

1) EH&S will frequently be the source of unfunded and unresourced mandates. "You must stop your research until you've properly tidied up all of your electrical cords" is, in the short term, an impediment to forward progress. Researchers frequently under-budget for safety/disposal costs when submitting proposals, leaving nobody with money to foot the bill for expediting the resolution for a safety stoppage.

2) The statistical likelihood of a single accident is greater for a large organization than for a single research group. One group can get away with a lethal practice for a hundred years before the first death. A hundred labs will only get away with a similar practice for a year.

If you find a competent and reasonable EH&S auditor, they are a great resource. They may ding you for some safety violations, but they'll be able to point the way toward safer practices. In the best case, even if they don't have mitigation funds for longstanding problems, their voices carry real weight and can expedite the allocation of scarce resources toward real safety concerns.