Occupational Health & Safety
cmonforton | September 13, 2011March 2, 2011 may have seemed like any other workday for David Clark Jr., 51, when he arrived at the Lee Creek potash mine in Aurora, NC at 5:50 am to start his shift. Clark and a small crew would be excavating a large ditch near the R9 roadway and burying a 22-inch diameter polyethylene (HDPE) pipe. The pipe would be used to carry the "slurry" created by processing the phosphate ore.
The task involved fusing four large sections of the HDPE pipe together to make one length of pipe. Clark was a 24-year employee of Trader Construction Company and had worked as a contractor at the Lee Creek…
lborkowski | September 11, 2011Among the victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks are workers who responded to the scene of the disaster and suffered severe - in some cases, fatal - health problems as a result. Those who showed up at the World Trade Center site for rescue, recovery, and cleanup operations were exposed to a range of toxic and mechanical hazards, as well as psychological trauma. Many of the estimated 40,000 workers have since developed respiratory, mental health, and other medical conditions.
Celeste and I asked freelance journalist Jori Lewis (whose reporting you might have heard on PRI's The World…
cmonforton | September 8, 2011After two teenagers' legs were severed while they were working near a grain auger, I wrote last month about the White House's role in holding up a proposed Labor Department rule to address hazards for young workers. After a 9-month delay by the White House, the Labor Department released the proposed rule last week and is asking the public to submit comments on it by November 1. After reviewing the proposal, it's hard to imagine why such common sense improvements to protect young workers drew such time-consuming scrutiny from the President's regulatory czar.
The proposed rules will amend the…
lborkowski | September 7, 2011American Public Media's Marketplace program is taking a look at "the economic legacy of 9/11" this week, and this morning's story focused on security spending in the private sector. Marketplace's Jeff Horwich highlighted an unexpected example: security for grain elevators.
For you city-folk, grain elevators are America's rural skyscrapers. Farmers dump their corn, wheat, soybeans. Trucks haul it out to feed the country. Even though elevators are mostly in the middle of nowhere, Bob Zelenka of the Minnesota Grain and Feed Association says you never know.
Bob Zelenka: It's on the edge of town…
lborkowski | September 5, 2011The Department of Labor's Labor Day 2011 website features some interesting historical info on this holiday, and an address from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis that focuses on job creation. What I found particularly interesting was an op-ed by Secretary Solis - one of many linked from the site's News page - published Friday in The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. It begins:
On Labor Day, we honor the contributions working men and women have made throughout history to the strength and prosperity of our nation. There are many, and they deserve the tribute.
But throughout our nation's history, there…
lborkowski | September 2, 2011A study just published in The Lancet compares the incidence rates of cancers in firefighters who worked at the World Trade Center site during and after the 9/11 attacks to the rates in firefighters not exposed to the disaster or its aftermath. Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Montefiore Medical Center and the New York Fire Department's Bureau of Health Services found that WTC firefighters had an overall cancer incidence ratio about 10% higher than that of a general population with similar demographics and 32% higher than that of non-WTC firefighters.
Firefighters who…
cmonforton | August 31, 2011In a week that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) rallied his Members with a plan to repeal "job-destroying regulations," the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) provides strong evidence to debunk the House Republican's rhetoric. In "Saving Lives, Preserving the Environment, Growing the Economy: The Truth about Regulation," CPR scholars provide concrete examples of profound benefits to society of safety and environmental regulations. It's a stark contrast to Mr. Cantor's one-sided view of regulations: they cost money, while completely ignoring their value to the health, safety and…
egrossman | August 30, 2011by Elizabeth Grossman
On Sunday August 21, a cleaning process designed to make tomatoes safe for customers eating marinara sauce, pizza topping, and canned tomatoes resulted in a release of chlorine dioxide gas that sent 43 workers at the Pacific Coast Producers plant in Woodland, California to area hospitals. According to Pacific Coast Producers vice president Mona Shulman, a malfunction of sanitizing equipment caused an "overdosing" of chlorine dioxide, causing the chemical to off-gas to the atmosphere. Chlorine dioxide gas was also drawn into a building through the ventilation system. "The…
cmonforton | August 29, 2011When OSHA proposed penalties in January 2011 totaling nearly $1.4 million against two Illinois grain handling companies, I noticed the agency's news release mentioned the employers' workers compensation insurance carrier. It was the first time that I'd see this in an OSHA news release, and I wondered if it was the start of something new. Apparently, not.
I reviewed the 280+ news releases on enforcement cases issued by OSHA between February 2011 and August 24, and only identified two in which the agency mentioned the employers' work comp insurance carrier.
One appeared in an April 2011…
lborkowski | August 26, 2011Deborah Blum at Speakeasy Science has put up a terrific two-part post about the early history of leaded gasoline, which bears much of the blame for lead poisoning in workers and the general population. (Paint containing lead is the other main culprit.) Blum's "At the Door of the Loony Gas Building" and "Of Dead Bodies and Dirty Streets" involve plot developments that might sound familiar: product kills people, industry insists product is safe, and back-and-forth about product's safety continues for decades before the product is finally altered, eliminated, or restricted to reduce harm to…
cmonforton | August 24, 2011The process of putting a new federal regulation in place to protect individuals from serious hazards at work often takes five or more years. Part 1 of "Worker safety rulemaking" described the steps leading up to OSHA proposing a new rule, to the point where the agency's chief decides whether to send the draft proposed rule to the White House for approval.
Submitting draft proposed rule to White House for review. Under a 1993 Presidential Executive Order (EO 12866), all significant regulatory actions planned by a federal agency must be submitted to the White House's Office of Information…
cmonforton | August 22, 2011I recently heard an individual who works on Capitol Hill describe the kinds of questions he receives from congressional offices. One that made me laugh out loud was:
"What new regulations did OSHA issue this month?"
This month? Entire years go by without a single new worker safety regulation, and those that are issued typically address hazards in just a handful of industries. In the last 10 years, OSHA has issued six major rules. The most recent, published in May 2011, was a safety standard that will affect less than 3,000 worksites, mostly commercial fishing vessels, shipyards and…
cmonforton | August 18, 2011The two 17 year old workers who were entangled two weeks ago in a grain auger remain hospitalized in the OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City. Family and friends of Bryce Gannon, 17 and Tyler Zander, 17 created a Facebook page, "Prayers for Bryce and Tyler," that provides a glimpse of the long road of recovery ahead for them. Both suffered amputation injuries to their legs. The Facebook posts suggest that the two young men have undergone multiple surgeries to treat their wounds and identify potential sources of infections. A post on Monday, Aug 15 reported:
"Tyler's surgery to clean his…
lborkowski | August 16, 2011I somehow missed this when it first happened, but the state of Connecticut made history last month when Governor Dan Malloy signed legislation requiring up to five paid sick days per year for service workers at businesses with 50 or more employees. Christopher Keating gave these details in the Hartford Courant after the state's House of Representative passed the measure:
Manufacturing firms and nationally chartered nonprofit organizations like the YMCA would be exempt, and the bill also would not cover day laborers, independent contractors, salaried workers, and temporary workers.
Unlike in…
cmonforton | August 15, 2011The Republican chairmen of the House Education and the Workforce Committee and its Subcommittee on Workforce Protections are invoking "sound science" and "transparency" in a request to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for data and draft publications of a cancer mortality study of underground miners exposed to diesel exhaust. Congressman John Kline (R-MN) and Tim Walberg (R-MI) wrote to NIOSH director John Howard onJuly 8, suggesting that the agency is violating a 2001 federal court order. That order stemmed from a lawsuit filed more than 15 years ago by the…
cmonforton | August 11, 2011[Update 8/15/2011 below]
Tyler Zander, 17 and Bryce Gannon, 17 were working together on Thursday, August 4 at the Zaloudek Grain Co. in Kremlin, Oklahoma. They were operating a large floor grain aguer when something went terribly wrong. Oklahoma's News9.com reports that Bryce Gannon's legs became trapped in the auger, Tyler Zander went to his friend's aid and his legs also were pulled into the heavy machinery. Emergency rescue personnel had to cut apart the 12-inch metal auger in order to free the young men. They were flown 100 miles to Oklahoma City for surgery and they remain…
cmonforton | August 9, 2011Individuals who "blow the whistle" have the courage to tell authorities about corruption, fraud or safety hazards in their organization, even when doing so may result in being demoted or reassigned, fired or passed over for promotion, or discriminated against in another way. Whistleblowers are truck drivers who refuse to drive unsafe vehicles, railroad workers who report work-related injuries, or a bank manager who alleged financial securities fraud. There are dozens of federal laws designed to protect whistleblowers from adverse action by their employers, including provisions in the Clean…
lborkowski | August 9, 2011Last week, I was fortunate to be able to attend the opening of a Smithsonian Museum of Natural History exhibit dedicated to the rescue of 33 miners from the San José mine in Chile, and meet two of miners whose story captivated the world as they endured 69 days underground following a mine explosion. Carlos Barrios, Jorge Galleguillos, José HenrÃquez, and Mario Sepúlveda traveled to DC for the opening of "Against All Odds: Rescue at the Chilean Mine," a small but powerful exhibit whose centerpiece is one of the capsules built to haul the miners up 2,000 feet through the narrow shaft drilled…
egrossman | August 8, 2011By Elizabeth Grossman
While the rest of the country has been experiencing an epic heat wave, in the Pacific Northwest where I live, thus far the summer has been unusually cool. One consequence of the cool weather is a slow-to-appear local tomato crop, made evident to consumers by some remarkably high prices. A pint of organic cherry tomatoes at my neighborhood market recently jumped more than a dollar within a week to $4.99, prompting me to wonder precisely what goes into the price of tomatoes.
Regional growers, distributors, and retailers all told me that prices are typically determined by…
cmonforton | August 5, 2011Earlier this week, I reported on the death of Margarito Guardado Resinos, 34, at a construction project in my hometown of San Marcos, TX. Mr. Resinos employer, Jetka Steel Erectors, had been inspected by OSHA in December 2010, at a different construction site, and received citations in May 2011 for four serious violations of safety standards. I noticed however that the $12,000 penalty proposed by OSHA for the violations had been reduced to $6,100 through a settlement agreement with the company. Moreover, two of the four serious violations were reclassified with the label "other-than-…