Today's post is shared from hazards.org. Silica exposure was the the trigger in the US during the 1059's that incorporated occupational diseases into the workers' compensation acts throughout the US. Silica exposures kill over 1,000 workers a year in the UK and leave many more fighting for breath. But, unlike its US counterpart, finds Hazards editor Rory O’Neill, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is following the industry line and says our deadly silica exposure standard is just fine. When the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited Teesdale Architectural Stone Ltd (TASL) in September 2007, it discovered workers were facing unacceptably high exposures to crystalline silica, a dust that can cause lung cancer, the breath-stealing disorder silicosis and other serious diseases. In two letters, the regulator told the Barnard Castle firm to clean up its act. Then it did nothing. After all, the company had written twice to assure the watchdog improvements had been made. Only they hadn’t. Five more years passed before a return HSE visit discovered workers were still facing a lung-clogging and potentially deadly daily dose of dust.
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Copyright
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Deadly silica standard is killing UK workers
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
There Are 1,401 Uninspected High-Risk Oil and Gas Wells. Here's Where They Are.
In May, the Government Accountability Office estimated that an even larger share of new wells on federal land—57 percent—were not inspected. While the revised 40 percent figure, which was first reported by the Associated Press, is lower, it's "still not a very good number," acknowledged BLM spokesperson Bev Winston.
Between 2009 and 2012, the BLM tagged 3,486 new oil and gas wells as "high-priority," meaning they are deserving of special scrutiny because of their proximity to ecologically sensitive areas like watersheds and forests, or because they tap into geologically volatile formations that increase the likelihood of an explosion or toxic gas leak. The data includes both conventional and unconventional wells and does not indicate how many of the wells were hydraulically fractured, or fracked.
"We're scattered, and you can't be everywhere at once," a top BLM official said.
According to the GAO report, the agency's own rules call for all high-priority wells on federal and Native American land to be inspected during the drilling stage. That's the only time when key facets of a well's construction—whether the well casing is properly sealed, or whether a blowout preventer is correctly installed, for example—can be adequately inspected. Once the well is drilled, retroactive inspection becomes difficult or impossible, according to a BLM engineer.
Because the window for drilling inspections at any given well opens and...
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Monday, June 23, 2014
EPA Proposes First Guidelines to Cut Carbon Pollution from Existing Power Plants
At the direction of President Obama and after an unprecedented outreach effort, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is today releasing the Clean Power Planproposal, which for the first time cuts carbon pollution from existing power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution in the United States. Today’s proposal will protect public health, move the United States toward a cleaner environment and fight climate change while supplying Americans with reliable and affordable power. "Climate change, fueled by carbon pollution, supercharges risks to our health, our economy, and our way of life. EPA is delivering on a vital piece of President Obama's Climate Action Plan by proposing a Clean Power Plan that will cut harmful carbon pollution from our largest source--power plants," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. "By leveraging cleaner energy sources and cutting energy waste, this plan will clean the air we breathe while helping slow climate change so we can leave a safe and healthy future for our kids. We don't have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment--our action will sharpen America’s competitive edge, spur innovation, and create jobs." Power plants account for roughly one-third of all domestic greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. While there are limits in place for the level of arsenic, mercury, sulfur... |
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Thursday, June 19, 2014
Why We’re Still Killing Workers in the USA
Today's post comes from guest author Jay Causey, from Causey Law Firm.
The AFL–CIO’s annual report on job fatalities is out, and provides some interesting fodder for thought.
It’s no surprise that North Dakota – – with its “wild West” environment for oil and gas extraction on the Bakken Shale was the most dangerous place – – with 17.7 deaths per 100,000 workers versus the national average of 3.4.
Nationally, 4600 workers died on the job in 2012. While that number has fallen since safety laws were implemented in the 1970s, the decline has flat-lined over the most recent decade. It was 4.2 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2006, now still at 3.4 in 2012.
The AFL–CIO report contains maps that reflect part of the reason for the stall-out: the vast majority of the states with the highest fatality rates contain the 8 million workers in states with no federally approved OSHA safety and health plan. The report graphically portrays another salient fact: the number of federal OSHA inspectors per 1 million workers has fallen from a high of 15 in 1980 to 6.9 in 2013. OSHA has been so underfunded over recent years that it would take an average of 139 years for available OSHA inspectors to visit each workplace in their jurisdiction just once. (In some states that number is even more staggering – – 521 years for South Dakota.)
The AFL-CIO report reflects some other interesting facts concerning the demographics of workplace fatalities – – not surprisingly, being foreign-born or Latino puts a worker at a higher risk of fatality, and homicide was the number one cause of death for women in the workplace in 2012.
But, getting back to the “oil patch” in North Dakota, we see other disturbing trends in the culture of workplace injury that accompany the decreasing application of safety regulation. With job growth tripling in North Dakota’s oil patch since 2007, while workers’ compensation filings are up, many injured workers are encouraged by employers in the extractive industries not to file, with many companies working out sidebar deals with injured workers. Injury rates are being kept artificially low by rewards for not reporting. As the AFL–CIO’s safety chief, Peg Semenario, has said, underreporting warps national safety figures in an industry that is already notoriously opaque.
And the culture of creating false indicators of workplace safety will likely have tremendous implications down the line when the 2000 tons of silica-rich sand used in the cement casing of each fracking well begins to work its way into workers’ lungs. NIOSH reported in 2012 that 92 of 116 air samples at franking sites exceeded the recommended safe levels of silica, which can lead to incurable, irreversible lung disease.
Photo credit: Craig Newsom / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Reports of Worker Fatalities during Flowback Operations
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Saturday, April 26, 2014
Jury awards Texas family nearly $3 million in fracking case
Fracking in Texas |
Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from www.latimes.com
Tuesday's $2.95-million civil verdict by a six-person Dallas jury is thought to be the first of its kind in the nation. Other landowners have sued over drilling and reached settlements, but legal experts think this is the first jury verdict.
Robert and Lisa Parr filed suit against Aruba Petroleum Inc. in 2011, contending that its operations near their land had contaminated the air and harmed their health. Their lawsuit has been closely watched by both critics and supporters of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves pumping water laced with chemicals into shale formations to unlock trapped oil and gas.
"I am just overwhelmed," Lisa Parr said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "I feel like I am just this little bitty girl, this little family who just beat the biggest, most powerful industry in the world."
Aruba Petroleum, based in Plano, Texas, said it had done nothing wrong and had operated within safe and legal guidelines. "We contended the plaintiffs were neither harmed by the presence of our drilling operations nor was the value of their property diminished because of our natural gas development," Aruba said in a statement.
The company said it would...
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Saturday, March 29, 2014
Proposed Silica Standard Needs to Be Strengthened
Testifying before an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hearing, Seminario noted that changes to the current exposure standard—now more than 40 years old—were first proposed in 1997 and that when the proposed new standard was sent for review to the Office of Management and Budget in 1991, it lingered there for two-and-a-half years.
Every day that a final standard is delayed, workers will continue to be at increased risk of disease and death.
Every year some 2 million workers are exposed to silica dust and, according to public health experts, more than 7,000 workers develop silicosis and 200 die each year as a result of this disabling lung disease. Silicosis literally suffocates workers to death. Silica is also linked to deaths from lung cancer, pulmonary and kidney diseases.
Seminario said that permissible exposure limit in the proposed standard while set at half the current level is still too high. She urged that a stricter standard be included in the final and said that other provisions in the standard should be strengthened, including:
Establishing regulated work areas to limit the number of workers.
Mar 23, 2014
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration today began holding public hearings for the notice of proposed rulemaking on occupational exposure to crystalline silica. This marks the beginning of an intensive three ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
OSHA will hold live Web chat on its proposed silica rule - Workers ...
Jan 12, 2014
The Web chat will provide participants the opportunity to ask questions, get clarification from OSHA on the proposed silica rule and learn how to participate in the regulatory process. OSHA staff will be available to clarify the ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Workers' Compensation: Silica exposures in fracking : Over 60 ...
Nov 22, 2013
It is against this backdrop of ongoing exposures of nearly 2 million silica-exposed workers and the serious health effects, that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has proposed a regulation to address ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Workers' Compensation: American Thoracic Society Welcomes ...
Sep 01, 2013
“The current OSHA standard of for respirable crystalline silica of 0.10 mg/m3 8 hour time weighted average has remained the same for 40 years and has been shown in numerous studies not to be protective.” “We support the ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Sunday, January 12, 2014
OSHA will hold live Web chat on its proposed silica rule
The Web chat will provide participants the opportunity to ask questions, get clarification from OSHA on the proposed silica rule and learn how to participate in the regulatory process. OSHA staff will be available to clarify the proposed standards related to silica for general industry, maritime and construction. Staff will also answer questions on OSHA's underlying analysis of health risks, potential costs and benefits, and economic impacts associated with the proposed rule and how to submit comments to the rulemaking record.
The deadline to submit written comments and testimony on the proposal is Monday, Jan. 27. Members of the public may submit comments by visiting http://www.regulations.gov.
Additional information on the proposed rule can be found at http://www.osha.gov/silica.
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit www.osha.gov.
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Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Midwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety
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Saturday, December 14, 2013
When Life Goes On, and On ...
The debate over a longer lifespan confronts many issued including medical costs, insurance coverage and quality of life. Workers' Compensation programs pay for lifetime care also in most instances. Today's post is shared from the NYTimes.org .
To the Editor:
Fundamentally, the goals of aging research are not dissimilar from efforts to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s or other chronic diseases in that they both seek to improve quality of life in the elderly. The difference is that interventions in aging may prevent not just one but a range of debilitating diseases simultaneously. The reality is that the world is rapidly getting older. With baby boomers leaving the work force, there won’t be enough workers to pay the ever-increasing Medicare costs of the retired. Extending health span will lower Medicare costs and allow aging people to stay engaged. Interventions that slow human aging will provide a powerful modality of preventive medicine: improving quality of life by keeping people... |
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.
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Thursday, November 28, 2013
Very High Blood Lead Levels Among Adults — United States, 2002–2011
Over the past several decades there has been a remarkable reduction in environmental sources of lead, improved protection from occupational lead exposure, and an overall decreasing trend in the prevalence of elevated blood lead levels (BLLs) in U.S. adults. As a result, the U.S. national BLL geometric mean among adults was 1.2 µg/dL during 2009–2010 (1).
Nonetheless, lead exposures continue to occur at unacceptable levels (2). Current research continues to find that BLLs previously considered harmless can have harmful effects in adults, such as decreased renal function and increased risk for hypertension and essential tremor at BLLs µg/dL (3–5). CDC has designated 10 µg/dL as the reference BLL for adults; levels ≥10 µg/dL are considered elevated (2). CDC's Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance (ABLES) program tracks elevated BLLs among adults in the United States (2). In contrast to the CDC reference level, prevailing Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) lead standards allow workers removed from lead exposure to return to lead work when their BLL falls below 40 µg/dL (6). During 2002–2011, ABLES identified 11,536 adults with very high BLLs (≥40 µg/dL). Persistent very high BLLs (≥40 µg/dL in ≥2 years) were found among 2,210 (19%) of these adults. Occupational exposures accounted for 7,076 adults with very high BLLs (91% of adults with known exposure source) and 1,496... |
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