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The EPA recently unveiled its “Strategy to Reduce Lead Exposures and Disparities in U.S. Communities” to advance its objectives to protect the public from lead, with a renewed focus upon high-risk communities. The Agency announced the strategy during National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week in Omaha, Nebraska, which was once home to a large lead smelter […]
On June 28, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) on revisions to the agency’s construction and general industry lead standards (87 Federal Register (FR) 38343). OSHA is considering changes to the standards’ criteria for worker medical removal, as well as action levels (Als) and permissible exposure […]
On December 16, 2021, the Biden-Harris administration released its Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan (LPPAP), which includes a commitment to replace all lead pipes in America within a decade. The plan details the release of $2.9 billion in infrastructure funding and an announcement of upcoming stricter EPA enforcement to protect public health. In conjunction […]
California’s Department of Public Health must notify the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) when a worker’s blood lead level tests at or above 20 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL) under a new state law.
In its proposed amendments to the federal Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), the EPA estimates that, nationwide, there are between 6.3 million and 9.3 million homes that receive drinking water through lead service lines (LSLs). (Uncertainty about the actual number of LSLs underlies the proposed requirement that public water systems (PWSs) inventory the LSLs in […]
The Trump administration’s new Federal Action Plan to Reduce Childhood Lead Exposures and Associated Health Impacts comprises four goals that will be pursued by many of the 17 federal agencies that make up the President’s Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children, which was formed in 1997 by Executive Order.
Worker safety advocates, scientists, and some state OSHA authorities have been contending for years that OSHA’s permissible exposure levels (PELs) for lead in the workplace are inadequate to protect workers from the multiple adverse health effects associated with the metal.
With the recognition that exposure to lead in the workplace can cause a host of short- and long-term illnesses, many industrial sectors have phased out its use and found substitutes. That still leaves many other sectors—at least 22, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)—where workers are more likely to inhale […]