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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced April 19 that Bare Bones Farms of Greenwood, Mississippi, is facing fines totaling $90,182 for willful and serious safety violations following the death of a teenage South African worker, who suffocated in a grain bin. The 19-year-old, 2 coworkers, and their supervisor climbed into a storage bin […]
In March 2023, an industry challenge to the EPA’s April 2021 Revised Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) Update Rule was rejected by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The rule required “power plants in 12 upwind states to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx), an ozone precursor, emissions such that those states did not inhibit downwind states’ […]
Due to a reported increase in cybersecurity attacks, the EPA issued a memorandum on March 3, 2023, advising public water systems (PWSs) of various approaches to protect themselves from these types of attacks. The memo stresses the need for states to assess cybersecurity risk at drinking water systems to protect public drinking water. “While some […]
Common household water leaks waste an average of 1 trillion gallons (gal) of water each year, says Beth Livingston, EPA WaterSense lead environmental specialist, according to the Federal News Network. While most people have heard of the EPA Energy Star program, its WaterSense program is not as well known. The program is a voluntary partnership […]
On April 11, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it renewed its designation of Dighton Power in Dighton, Massachusetts, as a “Star” site, the highest level of recognition in the agency’s Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP). The agency recently announced several new and renewed Star designations of VPP-participating employers, including L.L.Bean Manufacturing in Brunswick, […]
On April 10, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Region 5 office announced an outreach effort in the Midwest to stem the continuing trend of trench and excavation worker deaths. The 39 U.S. workers who died doing trench or excavation work in 2022 included 4 in Illinois and 2 others in Ohio, according to […]
Back to Basics is a weekly feature that highlights important but possibly overlooked information that any EHS professional should know. This week, we examine per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and actions to take to reduce the risks associated with PFAS. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking several steps to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances […]
2022 injury and illness data from over 300,000 U.S. workplaces is now available for download from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) website, the agency announced March 31. The agency requires certain employers to submit injury tracking data on OSHA Form 300A as part of its electronic recordkeeping requirements. Not all establishments are required […]
In March 2023, the Environmental Crimes Section (ECS) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) issued revisions to its Voluntary Self-Disclosure (VSD) Policy. The revisions set forth: Standards for what constitutes a VSD of misconduct to the ECS, A description of benefits ECS prosecutors will confer on companies that […]
In January 2023, Washington state’s new cap-and-invest program launched, which originated from the Washington Legislature’s passage of a package of historic legislative and budget proposals to combat climate change and prepare the state for the future low-carbon economy. The Legislature provided the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) with the authority and funding to develop […]