Confined Space @ TPH
sb admin | April 2, 2008On March 27th, South Africaâs Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism announced a prohibition on the use, processing or manufacturing, of any asbestos or asbestos containing products. The regulationâs objectives are:
To prohibit the use, processing or manufacturing, of any asbestos or asbestos containing product unless it can be proven that no suitable alternative exists, in which case a phase-out plan may be approved.
To prohibit the import or export of any asbestos or asbestos containing product provided that the importation is purely for transit through the country. Any person…
sb admin | April 1, 2008The Department of Labor's Inspector General (IG) issued a report yesterday about the Utah Crandall Canyon mine, saying:
"MSHA was negligent in carrying out its responsibilities to protect the safety of miners."
The investigation was carried out in response to a request from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and documented in an 80-page report entitled: "MSHA Could Not Show it Made the Right Decision in Approving the Roof Control Plan at Crandall Canyon Mine."Â Â The August 2007 underground mine disaster killed nine men, including Mr. Gary Jensen a federal…
sb admin | April 1, 2008This was one of the first-class quotes from former OSHA Assistant Secretary Jerry Scannell (1989-1993) during today's hearing on workers' safety and health before the Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. His comment came in response to discussions about OSHA's and the Department of Labor's Solicitor's Office's practices of reducing penalties, even in cases of serious violations. Mr. Scannell said he often felt pressure from inside and outside the agency to settle inspection and fatality-investigation cases by using "discount factors" to reduce monetary…
sb admin | March 31, 2008The breakneck pace of high-rise construction on Las Vegasâ famed Strip comes at a terrible price: Since the end of 2006, nine construction workers have died in workplace accidents. In a special two-part series, the Las Vegas Sunâs Alexandra Berzon explores why these deaths are happening and what the state OSHAâs response has been.
Berzonâs first article, âPace is the new peril,â begins with the story of 46-year-old Harold Billingsley, who worked on the CityCenter development, a casino and six adjacent high-rises that together amount to the most expensive private commercial development in this…
sb admin | March 28, 2008In response to a recommendation from the Department of Labor's Inspector General, MSHA released data on 40 additional deaths which occurred (mostly) in 2007 at U.S. mining operations but were deemed not "chargeable" to the mining industry. The information, which includes 5 deaths in late 2006 and 35 in 2007, involved miners, contract workers, a mine owner, children of mine operators, and trespassers onto mine property. Of the 40 deaths, 30 were classified as "natural causes," based on autopsy reports with notations such as "acute cardiac dysrhthmia," "acute myocardial infarction," "…
sb admin | March 26, 2008Workers repairing the Qarmat Ali water injection plant in Iraq were told that the orange substance strewn around the facility was only a mild irritant â but after two-and-a-half months of exposure to it, many workers felt ill. Farah Stockman reports in the Boston Globe:
But the chemical turned out to be sodium dichromate, a substance so dangerous that even limited exposure greatly increases the risk of cancer. Soon, many of the 22 Americans and 100-plus Iraqis began to complain of nosebleeds, ulcers, and shortness of breath. Within weeks, nearly 60 percent exhibited symptoms of exposure,…
sb admin | March 26, 2008I recently started a new job, and since I donât know the surrounding neighborhood well yet, Iâve been taking different routes through it every morning on my way to the office. Yesterday, steps from the White House, I approached a small construction site, shuffling to escape the unmistakable roar of a jackhammer on concrete. But then something stopped me in my tracks. The morning sunlight shining brightly down on the workers revealed the swirling clouds of dust emanating from the trembling sidewalk.
My âworker safetyâ radar on full alert, I crossed the street to get a better look at what was…
sb admin | March 25, 2008The Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, chaired by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), will hold a hearing on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 entitled "Serious OSHA Violations: Strategies for Breaking Dangerous Patterns." The subcomittee has not yet released a witness list, but I'd expect to hear something about some of the bad actors profiled in the "Dirty Dozen" report, prepared in 2006 by the National COSH.
sb admin | March 24, 2008With the six-month deadline approaching for issuing citations and monetary penalties, OSHA announced today 13 willful and 25 serious violations against RPI Coatings, the employer of five workers who died in early October at the Excel Energy Cabin Creek Station hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, Colorado. The penalty amount proposed by OSHA against RPI Coatings is $845,100.
The deceased workers were part of a contract maintenance crew who were applying a specialized epoxy coating onto the inside of a 3,000 foot-long (and 4 foot-wide) pipe.  A fire erupted inside the pipe, starving…
sb admin | March 21, 2008A coal miner from eastern Kentucky filed a law suit yesterday requesting a federal court judge to compel MSHA to issue a health standard to prevent miners from developing black lung disease. The Petition for Writ of Mandamus (Howard v. Chao) argues that Congress intended, through the Federal Coal Mine Health & Safety Act of 1969 (amended 1977), MSHA to promulgate regulations to prevent new cases of coal workers pnuemoconiosis, progressive massive fibrosis and other illnesses related to miners' exposure to respirable coal mine dust. Despite evidence over the last 12 years that…
sb admin | March 21, 2008It's national Sunshine Week---an effort "to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger."  A great way to celebrate the public's right-to-know what its government is doing, is by sending a FOIA request to your favorite local, state or federal agency. In that spirit, I faxed a FOIA request to OSHA today.Â
My request stems from an exchange of comments on work-related motor vehicle fatalities following my March 7 post "When the Road is Your…
sb admin | March 19, 2008On OSHA's latest regulatory agenda, the agency noted it would complete the required SBREFA report for a draft rule on beryllium in January 2008, and it did (121-page PDF here) This report stems from the December 6 meeting between OSHA, the Small Business Administration and small entity representatives, as required by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act . This 1996 law requires OSHA (and EPA) to share a draft of proposed regulations to a group of small business owners (i.e., companies with 500 or fewer employees) so they can suggest changes to it or to the agency's…
sb admin | March 19, 2008On the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the toll on members of the military is substantial: at least 3,988 U.S. personnel have died in Iraq and 29,395 more have been wounded. iCasulties.org estimates the total number of Coalition force fatalities at 4,298 and Iraqi Security Force fatalities at 6,727.
What these numbers donât reveal is the toll on wounded soldiers, their families, and their communities. Veterans suffering from debilitating injuries and mental health problems often have to fight to get the care they need from a system ill-prepared to provide it; meanwhile, mental and…
sb admin | March 18, 2008Despite the excellent presentations by USMWF's Tammy Miser, the Chemical Safety Board's William Wright and NFPA's Amy Spencer, the image that remains in my head from last week's congressional hearing on combustible dust was Ranking Member Howard "Buck" McKeon's performance. After the aforementioned witnesses made common-sense appeals in support of an OSHA standard modeled on National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards, Congressman McKeon (R-CA) made unconvincing claims that such rules are so very complicated. Surely, no simple small businessman could ever be expected to…
sb admin | March 14, 2008Yesterday we learned that former Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH) passed away at age 90. His former colleague, Sentor Edward Kennedy issued a statement, saying:
"He was the conscience of the Senate, who never shied away from the difficult fights, and never apologized for standing up for workers."
I had the unforgettable opportunity to watch Senator Metzenbaum in action at numerous congressional hearings on worker safety and health topics. Whether the topic was right-to-know, protections for hazardous waste clean-up workers or inadequate OSHA penalties, he was always well-prepared and…
sb admin | March 13, 2008My experiences tell me that journalists play a critical role in public health improvements; my evidence is anecdotal, but my examples continue to mount. Take Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette and his coverage of the toxic substance ammonium perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also known as C8. It's the chemical used to make Teflon non-stick surfaces. Recently, Ward wrote about a mortality analysis of workers in a 3M facility in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. What's noteworthy about Ward's story is not so much the study's findings, but rather, that he does the yeoman's work to monitor the…
sb admin | March 12, 2008On Thursday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released a report on the Crandall Canyon mining disaster that claimed nine lives in Utah last August. (Celesteâs posts on the disaster are in our August archive.) A Salt Lake Tribune editorial opines that âMost damning is the revelation that the coal company ignored a direct order from an MSHA inspector and continued to carve coal from a barrier pillar that served as a roof support in the mine.â The SLTâs Robert Gehrke focuses on what MSHA did wrong:
Mine Safety and Health Administration officials yielded to pressure from…
sb admin | March 11, 2008A group of state legislators in West Virginia introduced a bill earlier this year to strengthen the Stateâs laws to protect mine workers who raise concerns about unsafe working conditions. The lead sponsors were Delegate Bill Hamilton (R) who represents the region where the now-abandoned Sago mine and State Senators Jon Blair Hunter (D) and Randy White (D). (I wrote earlier about their effort here.) Several weeks have now passed, and are any of us surprised to learn that the bill was killed in the WV legislative committee? Â
Nathan Fetty of Mine Safety Project of the…
sb admin | March 8, 2008That's the word from Georgia's Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, John Oxendine, during his announcement that the State will impose new safety requirements to prevent combustible dust explosions. The Commissioner's new rule comes one month after a deadly explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, which killed 12 and severely injured scores of other workers, including 11 who remain in critical condition from the severe burns they suffered in the blast. (More on the burn victims and the long recover ahead for them here.)
The new safety requirement which were…
sb admin | March 7, 2008The scene was an icy morning in western Maryland, along the Garrett County and Allegany County lines. Mr. Dwight Samuel Colmer, 41, a truck driver with Western Maryland Lumber Company was hauling a load of coal just before 11:00 AM when his truck began to slide. The State of Maryland's "Motor Vehicle Accident Report" says:
"...hit guard rail, and overturned to the passenger side. Driver was ejected and crushed under the dump truck and died from the injuries."
The report indicates the incident occurred on a public road called Bartlett Street. Is this a work-related fatality?Â
Well, it…