Occupational Health & Safety
cmonforton | July 3, 2012[Updated (July 5, 2012) below]
"We're still in the dark," explained one family whose son was killed 27 months ago at Alpha Natural Resources (formerly Massey Energy's) Upper Big Branch mine (UBB). That comment came two weeks ago after learning that Alpha, one of the world's largest coal companies, provided its first progress report to U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin as required by the December 2011 Non-Prosecution Agreement. The report was dated June 4, 2012. The progress report is supposed to describe the firm's compliance with the agreement, which settled the U.S. Department of Justice's…
cmonforton | June 28, 2012Just two weeks ago, families of the 29 men who were killed on April 5, 2010 at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine traveled to Washington DC to urge lawmakers to improve our nation's mine safety law. The West Virginia natives met with Republican and Democratic Members of Congress and asked for four simple reforms targeted at the mining industry's bad actors. They weren't asking anything for themselves. Only for new laws to help deter unscrupulous employers from causing another disaster and causing other communities to suffer the same pain and loss the UBB families have endured.…
cmonforton | June 27, 2012It's not the first time that Kenneth Rosenman, MD has provided scientific evidence on the deficiencies in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) annual survey of occupational injuries and illnesses, and it won't be the last. His latest study, written with Joanna Kica, MPA, with Michigan State University's (MSU) Department of Medicine ,reports that the Labor Department's methods for estimating work-related burns misses about 70% of them. Their analysis focused on cases occurring in the State of Michigan in 2009. The MSU researchers used data from the State's 134 acute-care hospital, which…
egrossman | June 22, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
In response to results of the recently released National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) field studies that found workers at hydraulic fracturing operations exposed to high levels of respirable crystalline silica, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and NIOSH have issued a Hazard Alert. The alert outlines the health hazards associated with hydraulic fracturing and focuses specifically on exposures to airborne silica, saying that “employers must ensure that workers are properly protected from overexposure to silica.” It also…
cmonforton | June 21, 2012It's been almost two years since Daniel Noel, 47, and Joel Schorr, 38, went to work at Barrick Goldstrike's Meikle mine near Elko, Nevada, but never made it back home to their families. They were fatally crushed on August 12, 2010 in a mine shaft by tons of falling aggregate and pipe. As I wrote last year, management at this mine --- an operation owned by the largest gold producer in the world, with a stock market value of tens of billions of dollars --- had jerry-rigged a reset button with a broom handle and failed to replace missing clamp bolts and load-bearing plates on the aggregate…
cmonforton | June 19, 2012Researchers with the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report in the current issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Vol. 16, No. 23) on the prevalence of dust diseases of the lungs among U.S. surface coal miners. Based on chest x-rays performed on 2,238 workers who work at surface/strip coal mines in 16 States, 46 of them (about 2 percent) had radiographic evidence of coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP). The median age of the workers with CWP was only 56 years; the median years of mining experience was 33 years. Especially troubling is the…
lborkowski | June 18, 2012by Kim Krisberg
When most of us think of sustainability and construction, the usual suspects probably come to mind: efficient cooling and heating, using nontoxic building materials, minimizing environmental degradation — in other words, being green. But in Austin, Texas, a new effort is working to expand the definition of sustainability from the buildings themselves to the hands that put them together.
Launched about a year ago, the Workers Defense Project's Premier Community Builders program certifies major new developments as sustainable for workers. That means making sure construction…
lborkowski | June 18, 2012The day after the Tony Awards honored excellence in Broadway theater, the NIOSH Science Blog posted information about some of the theatrical hazards and precautions that may not be visible to audiences. Gregory A. Burr and Deborah Hornback write:
While the theater provides entertainment, the preparation and production of live performances can also pose hazards to those working in all aspects of the theater –from actors on stage to set designers behind the scenes and musicians in the orchestra pit. Some of these hazards were well publicized in recent years as multiple actors and stunt doubles…
egrossman | June 14, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
“It’s basically strip mining,” said Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) environmental engineer Rick Wulk, describing the sand mining activity that has exploded across western Wisconsin since 2010. Mining silica and quartz and processing it into industrial sand is big business these days because this sand is an important component of hydraulic fracturing operations that extract natural gas from shale. To understand the magnitude of the current boom in sand mining, the place to look is Wisconsin. What’s happening in Wisconsin also offers a good example of how…
cmonforton | June 12, 2012A panel of scientific experts convened by the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded today that diesel engine exhaust is carcinogenic to humans. Previously, the IARC classification for diesel exhaust was "probably carcinogenic to humans," but with the publication of additional epidemiological and toxicological studies over the last 20 years, the expert panel determined there was sufficient evidence to change the compound's cancer designation. The IARC panel wrote:
"The scientific evidence was reviewed thoroughly by the Working Group…
cmonforton | June 11, 2012Tobacco companies did it. Asbestos-peddlers did it. Chromium users did it. The list goes on and on. When polluters and manufacturers of dangerous products feel threatened by scientific evidence that their pet compound is carcinogenic to humans, they will do everything money can by to avoid the "cancer-causing" label.
The latest example comes from diesel-engine manufacturers. Their efforts come just in time for a meeting of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) scheduled for June 5-12, 2012. IARC, an agency within the World Health Organization, is convening an expert…
lborkowski | June 11, 2012by Beth Spence
Carrying enlarged photographs of their lost loved ones, family members of three of the 29 miners killed in the 2010 explosion at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine spent June 6-7 in Washington, D.C., pleading with lawmakers to take action to improve mine safety and to stiffen penalties for mining companies that knowingly, willingly and recklessly place miners’ lives at risk.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) stands with Clay Mullins, Betty Harrah, Gary Quarles and AFSC staff member Beth Spence. Photo by Bryan Vana, American Friends Service Committee.
Betty Harrah’s photo showed…
cmonforton | June 6, 2012by Mark Catlin
Tony Mazzocchi was a visionary who was in the forefront of the labor movement's major struggles for social justice in the postwar period. Those hard fought struggles and victories, from the civil rights movement and the struggles against nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War, to the struggle for environmental justice and the movement for occupational health and safety, which he spearheaded.
Last evening, in a very moving ceremony, the US Department of Labor inducted Tony Mazzocchi, dynamic labor leader, into its Labor Hall of Honor. The ceremony took place at the New…
lborkowski | June 5, 2012Last week, iWatch News (of the Center for Public Integrity) published an in-depth story on combustible dust explosions, which have killed or injured at least 900 workers over the past three decades. Chris Hamby tells the story of Wiley Sherburne, a 42-year-old electrician who was killed by burns from iron dust explosion at the Hoeganaes plant in Tennessee, and the long history of this occupational hazard. Hamby reports that worker-killing dust explosions have been documented since the late 1800s, but still continue. Whether the dust is from metal, nylon, wood, sugar, or another substance, its…
egrossman | June 4, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
Tap water bursting into flame, water sources contaminated with toxic chemicals, once-pastoral rural hillsides turned over to industrial fossil fuel extraction, and unprecedented earthquake activity. These are among the environmental health concerns commonly associated with the extraction of natural gas by the method known as hydraulic fracturing – or fracking. But one of the more pernicious and pervasive potential occupational fracking hazards may come from sand. Not just ordinary sand, but sand that is nearly 100% crystalline silica and specially produced to play a key…
cmonforton | June 1, 2012by Laredo, golden retriever dog
A weird story appeared on my Facebook page today. It was written by somebody named "AP." The headline read: "Alpha introduces mine search-rescue dog in Va." I like working dogs just as much as the next canine, so I read the article. Says that "Ginny" is a two-year old dutch-shepherd dog who weighs 48 pounds.
Get this, Mr. AP's article says Ginny is:
"...the newest member of coal producer Alpha Natural Resources Inc.'s search-and-rescue team, trained to perform searches in both underground and surface mines. Equipped with an infrared camera and atmospheric…
cmonforton | May 31, 2012The Obama Administration's quest to appease business interests' claims about burdensome and outdated regulations awoke a giant in the form of the civil rights, public health and workers' safety communities. From the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Council of LaRaza, to the American Public Health Association and Nebraska Appleseed, the feedback is loud and clear: USDA should withdraw the regulatory changes it proposed in January (77 Fed Reg 4408) which would shift the responsibility for examining and sorting poultry carcasses with obvious defects from USDA inspectors to the…
lborkowski | May 29, 2012By Kim Krisberg
Wally Reardon stopped climbing towers for a living back in 2002 due to an injury. He had spent years putting up communication antennas anywhere employers wanted them — smokestacks, buildings, grain silos, water tanks. Just about anything that rose up into the sky, Reardon would find a way to scale it. It was exhilarating.
"I can't explain that freedom that we felt," Reardon told me. "I just liked the adventure of climbing towers. I just totally loved it. It was a crazy lifestyle and we were like a bunch of nomads. We lived by our own rules."
It was also dangerous. In fact,…
cmonforton | May 25, 2012When Debbie "Muvmuv" Brewer was diagnosed in 2006 with pleural mesothelioma, it was a tough year. She'd also lost her beloved Dad, Phillip Northmore, who succumbed to his own asbestos-related disease. After meeting Muvmuv a few weeks ago at the 8th Annual International Asbestos Awareness Conference, I wrote that she named the tumor inside her chest wall "Theo,” and she was hoping that he would remain dormant. Muvmuv, a native of Plymouth UK, was due to undergo a CT scan:
“to find out if Theo had moved at all, or if he has been a typical lazy man and sat on the sofa watching TV. He must be…
cmonforton | May 24, 2012Six months after Maureen Revetta's husband, Nick, 32, was killed by an explosion at the U.S. Steel plant in Clairton, PA, she was still waiting to hear from the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The young widow, now a single parent with a two children under age 5, had received a condolence letter from OSHA shortly after the September 2009 incident. The letter indicated the agency was investigating the circumstances surrounding her husband’s work-related death. It didn't mention, however, that the statute of limitations for issuing citations was six…