Occupational Health & Safety
sb admin | December 19, 2007Updated 12/20: See belowÂ
Four workers were killed and at least 14 people were injured in a violent explosion at the T2 Labs in Jacksonville, Florida. The firm manufacturers Ecotane®, the gasoline additive "methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl" (i.e., MMT® or MCMT), which increases the octane rating of gasoline. The firm says that its Florida facility is state-of-the art, and uses a "novel, safe and efficient process." We'll have to wait for OSHA or the Chemical Safety Board to tell us whether they had an effective process management safety system.Â
The company's…
sb admin | December 19, 2007Nurses, construction workers, and cleaning industry employees have some new resources available to them:
The American Nurses Association launched a âSafe Staffing Saves Livesâ website to help nurses become advocates for safe levels of staffing in hospital units (via Occupational Health & Safety)
NIOSH has issued âSimple Solutions: Ergonomics for Construction Workers,â which includes tip sheets for 20 common construction tasks (via the NIOSH Science Blog)
OSHA has put up a Safety and Health Topics Page for the cleaning industry; it includes links to resources regarding bloodborne…
sb admin | December 17, 2007Every few months like clockwork, news stories have been appearing to report a rise in incidence rates for coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP).  The format goes something like this:Â
Headline: Black lung on the rise!
Lead: NIOSH reports sharp increase in black lung cases
Body: How can this be? It's so perplexing.
You'd think they're talking about a never-seen-before viral disease. Instead, it's all about CWP, a disease that is 100% preventable, yet it's being treated as if it is a mystery that can't be solved.Â
This time, the story appeared in the Beckley, WV Register-…
sb admin | December 14, 2007As the year is winding down, one question on the minds of many MSHA inspectors, managers and staff has to be: Will Stickler be here in 2008? The MSHA chief, Richard Stickler, received his job from President G.W. Bush on a "recess appointment," which expires at the end of the current U.S. Senate session. If the Senate adjourns (as it usually does) for the Christmas and New Year holidays, Mr. Stickler's appointment would officially end. This would leave MSHA without a politically-appointed Assistant Secretary. Would that be a good thing for miners' health and safety?
I can't…
sb admin | December 12, 2007An gas explosion in a coal mine in Chinaâs Shanxi province has killed 105 miners. Xinhua reports on factors that contributed to the tragedy:
[Li Yizhong, head of the State Administration of Work Safety] said the number nine coal bed, where the accident occurred, was not approved for mining. However, it had been mined since February 2006. Owners of the mine faked the documents and temporarily blocked the coal bed to deliberately elude inspection.
At the time of the accident, ten mining teams were working at the site, with 54 motor vehicles that did not meet safety requirements.
The gas level…
lborkowski | December 11, 2007Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao published her semi-annual regulatory agenda yesterday in the Federal Register. Earlier this month, I'd made predictions about the agenda, but after perusing the document, I'm glad I didn't put any money down on my guesses. Rather than updating the status of safety and health standards that are in the works, many hazard topics are just gone---no longer listed on OSHA's or MSHA's agenda.
The Secretary's last regulatory agenda (April 2007) listed 38 workplace health and safety hazards for possible regulatory action, 16 for MSHA and 22 for OSHA.**Â The newly…
sb admin | December 6, 2007The New York Times' headline read:
350 Men Entombed in Mine Explosion. Rescue Force at Work in the Debris of Two Shattered Mines at Monongah, West Va. Poisonous Gas Pours Out.
At about 10:00 am on Dec 6, 1907, a violent explosion of methane gas and coal dust killed hundreds of workers at two adjacent underground coal mines owned by Consolidated Coal Company. The official death toll is listed at 362, but in Davitt McAteer's new book Monongah, his research suggests the disaster claimed the lives of more than 550 men and boys.
In the days following the disaster, the New York Times…
sb admin | December 6, 2007A quick look at âPredictors of Psychostimulant Use by Long-Distance Truck Driversâ by Ann Williamson in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
An Australian study finds that paying truck drivers by the job (instead of by the hour or week) leads to increased driver use of amphetamines and other stimulants, which is associated with increased risk for highway crashes.
Anne Williamson's analysis of self-reported stimulant use among truck drivers found between âone in five and one in three drivers reported using stimulants at least sometimesâ and âstimulant drug use was twice as likely for…
sb admin | December 5, 2007NIOSH (the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) has launched a new blog, called the NIOSH Science Blog, as a way to fulfill its mission of translating NIOSH scientific research into practice. It invites visitors âto present ideas to NIOSH scientists and each other while engaging in robust scientific discussion with the goal of protecting workers.â Their first three posts cover a range of occupational health and safety topics:
Workplace Stress, by NIOSH Senior Scientist Steve Sauter
Truck Driver Safety and Health, by NIOSH Research Health Scientist W. Karl Sieber
Preventing…
sb admin | December 4, 2007It's been nearly four months since nine men were killed at the Crandall Canyon mine in Emery County, Utah. Congressman George Miller (D-CA) held a hearing in early October on the disaster, but a Senate hearing, scheduled for Dec 4, for which the mine operator Robert Murray had been subpeonaed, was cancelled. The Salt Lake Tribune's Mike Gorrell and Robert Gherke reported recently on photographs taken inside the mine:
"If there was any question about the power of a mine bounce--created when the immense pressures on the coal pillars supporting the roof cause coal to blow out of the walls…
sb admin | December 3, 2007Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. It gives short writeups of 88 workplace deaths, including the following:
Joe Shephard, 36, of London, KY died when the construction trench he was working in collapsed.
Maria De Losangeles, 48, of Mesa, AZ was working a state highway litter-pickup detail when she was struck and killed by a car.
Robert Leavitt, 51, of Hartford, ME was tending one of his fields when his tractor rolled over on him and killed him.
Read the full descriptions of these and other workplace deaths here. Itâs…
lborkowski | November 30, 2007It's that time of year---time for the Secretary of Labor to issue her semi-annual regulatory agenda.  Look for its publication in the Federal Register around the second week of December.
I'll be curious to see OSHA's timetable for action on diacetyl, the butter-flavoring agent associated with severe lung disease in exposed workers.
Will OSHA list diacetyl on its reg agenda?
Will it provide a target date for publishing a proposed rule?
   I'll also be eager to see OSHA's latest schedule for proposed rules to address:
Hearing conservation for construction workers (who are…
sb admin | November 28, 2007Last month, BP and the Department of Justice reached a settlement agreement under which BP will pay $50 million for Clean Air Act violations associated with the March 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery, which killed 15 workers and injured many more. Celeste Monforton noted at the time that this amount is more than twice the $12.6 million BP agreed to pay for violating workplace health and safety standards.
Victims of the Texas City explosion say BPâs fine is too lenient, and they complained that the judge overseeing the settlement had a conflict of interest because he worked until 2006…
sb admin | November 28, 2007In today's Federal Register, OSHA published a proposed rule to protect construction workers from the hazards of working in confined spaces. This proposal--just a proposed rule at this point---has been 14 years in the making. It is something that OSHA promised to do as part of a 1994 settlement agreement with the Steelworkers. A rule has been in place since 1993 to protect workers in so-called âgeneral industryâ from working in confined spaces (e.g., storage tanks, sewers, silos) with requirements for measuring the air quality inside the space so that workers know whether…
sb admin | November 27, 2007The chairman of the University of Kentucky's (UK) mining engineering department wrote in a recent op-ed of his strong oppposition to a new mine safety bill (HR 2768) which is making its way through Congress. The legislation will address long-standing health and safety hazards faced by miners such as disease-causing coal dust and silica, belt-air ventilation, flammable conveyor belts, among other things. In "New Mining Bill Premature," printed in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Professor Rick Honaker says it is "incomprehensible" that Congress is attempting to place new safety…
sb admin | November 26, 2007Former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani (R) is basing his presidential campaign on his so-called Twelve Commitments to the American People. A number of them make me particularly nervous, especially as we learn of the fragile state of some fundamental public health systems. Problems including lead-laced children's toys, coal mining disasters, e.coli 0157:H7-contaminated foods and unsafe pharmaceuticals come to mind. Candidate Guiliani says he plans to:
"Reduce the federal civilian workforce by 20% through attrition and retirement"
"Require agencies to identify at least 5% to 20% in spending…
sb admin | November 26, 2007Europe is often ahead of the US when it comes to protecting its people from environmental and occupational hazards, but our public health officials led the way in identifying the hazards of diacetyl, the butter-flavoring chemical that causes severe lung disease in workers. When ten workers from a Missouri microwave popcorn plant were diagnosed with the rare lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans in 2000, the stateâs Department of Health notified federal officials. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health studied the facility, issued recommendations to improve workersâ…
sb admin | November 23, 2007In late October, the Dept of Justice (DOJ) announced an agreement with British Petroleum (BP) on three outstanding criminal cases including violations of the Clean Air Act related to the March 2005 explosion at their Texas City refinery which killed 15 workers and injured 170 others. We wrote here about the disparity in government fines for causing environmental damage compared to those killing and injury workers. Now, Bloomberg.com is reporting that U.S. District Court judge Gray H. Miller, who was overseeing the DOJ/BP settlement has recused himself after victims accused him of …
sb admin | November 21, 2007The Mine Safety and Health Administration has been in the news again lately. The Labor Departmentâs Inspector General released a report stating that the agency failed to conduct required inspections at more than one in seven of U.S. underground coal mines last year (budget constraints and a lack of management emphasis on worker safety by the Bush administration get the blame). In a separate audit, the IG also found that the U.S. Department of Laborâs procedures for counting mining deaths are inconsistent and donât follow the agencyâs own written rules.
Charles Thomas, a 16-year veteran of…
sb admin | November 21, 2007While families in eastern Ukraine are mourning the death of 90 coal miners from the Zasaidko coal mine, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said:
"This accident has proven once again that a human is powerless before nature."
This disaster was no accident. This was no unpredictable force of nature.  It was a massive methane explosion that could have--should have--been prevented. Shame on Yanukovych for suggesting the Ukrainian coal industry is powerless to stop them.Â
Underground coal mining and methane go hand-in-hand. Prime Minister Yanukovych may not know this, but miners …