Environmental, Health and Safety Brief for August 2017

 

Job Hazard Analysis (JHA): This process observes the connections between worker, task, tools and environment. After identifying hazards, the user takes steps to reduce or eliminate them. We all know this but do we practice or use the tool? Thousands of injuries occur in the work place that could well have been prevented by using the JHA process. This tool not only helps prevent injuries and incidents, it can also can aid in auditing, training and incident investigation. Performing and documenting that a JHA has been done and communicated protects both the worker and the company. OSHA has a very good guidance document that explains the process and gives example JHA’s.  Recommendation: Use the tool and increase workplace safety. Increased productivity will follow.

 

Job Hazard Analysis:  Click Here

 

 

OSHA's new standards for silica require that employers use engineering controls such as ventilation and wet methods for cutting and sawing materials containing crystalline silica (such as milling and cutting of asphalt and concrete) to reduce workers' exposure to silica dust. OSHA's new PEL (permissible exposure limit) will limit worker exposure to 50 micrograms of respirable crystalline silica per cubic meter of air averaged over an eight-hour day, which is roughly half of the previous PEL for silica in general industry and 20 percent of the previous PEL for construction and maritime. 

  

 

OSHA delayed enforcing the new standard for construction (roadway work for our industry) until September 23, 2017, and the standard for general industry (asphalt plants for our industry) and maritime employers won't go into effect until June 23, 2018. But some states have already begun enforcing the new requirements. If you have not already done it, now would be a good time to assess your milling and cutting operations to see how you are going to control the dust generated in those operations.

  

 

EPA: If you have a hot mix plant, then likely you have an air permit, and in that air permit you are likely to have verbiage relating to maintenance, startup and shutdown (MSS) emissions for the plant. If you have MSS language, then that allows for the typically higher emissions generated as a result of maintenance, startup, shutdown activities at the plant for a short period of time...usually 20 minutes or so. This provision is currently under attack by various citizen groups. These groups have litigated, and the DC Court of Appeals has twice ruled, that the Clean Air Act does not allow for this provision even though the EPA and States have for decades allowed the use of this provision. If this provision were to be eliminated, then it is conceivable that every time a plant starts up, shuts down or experiences a maintenance issue where emissions are temporarily increased, then it potentially would be out of compliance with its air permit. The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review the case and the thought is that the Court will rule in industry favor. Stay tuned.

 

 

Fatigue: Going to bed later and waking up later on weekends than during the week – also known as social jet lag – may be linked to poor health and higher levels of sleepiness and fatigue, according to the preliminary results of a study conducted by researchers at the University of Arizona. The researchers surveyed 984 adults between the ages of 22 and 60 on sleep duration, insomnia, cardiovascular disease, mood, fatigue and sleepiness. Participants reported their overall health on a standardized scale, according to a June 5 press release from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM).

 

 

Results showed each hour of social jet lag was linked to an 11.1 percent increase in the chances of developing heart disease. In addition, participants who experienced social jet lag were 28.3 percent more likely to report their health as "fair/poor."

 

 

"These results indicate that sleep regularity, beyond sleep duration alone, plays a significant role in our health," Sierra Forbush, lead author and undergraduate research assistant at the University of Arizona’s Sleep and Health Research Program, said in the release. "This suggests that a regular sleep schedule may be an effective, relatively simple and inexpensive preventative treatment for heart disease, as well as many other health problems."

 

AASM recommends that adults sleep seven or more hours per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health.