Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
In a final rule, the EPA has added three categories of non-hazardous secondary materials (NHSMs)—construction and demolition (C&D) wood, paper recycling residuals, and creosote-treated railroad ties—to the initial list of four categories it published in a 2013 rule. NHSMs in these seven categories can be burned in combustion units as nonwaste fuels without the owner […]
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the EPA to fulfill its obligations under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) to initiate financial assurance rulemaking for the hard rock mining industry. The court order responds to a joint motion filed by six environmental groups and the […]
Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House to block the EPA from requiring compliance with its National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for the brick and structural clay products manufacturing and clay ceramics manufacture maximum achievable control technology (collectively, Brick MACT) until any judicial proceedings, including appeals, addressing the rule are final.
OSHA has updated its voluntary Safety and Health Management Program guidelines. They’re not yet finalized; OSHA is accepting public comment on the revisions until February 15. Among the proposed revisions are new sections on program evaluation and multiemployer workplaces. A summary of the proposed changes is below. New Focus Areas for SHMP According to OSHA, […]
When OSHA inspectors returned to an Atlanta food manufacturing facility and found previously cited hazards had reoccurred, the company management took an unusual step: company representatives told OSHA the company accepted responsibility for the safety and health hazards and signed a pre-citation settlement agreement with OSHA on January 15.
The EPA has proposed 30 chemical contaminants/groups for its 4th Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 4). The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) specifies that the UCMR must list no more than 30 contaminants or groups—called the contaminant candidate list (CCL)—and that the EPA must produce a revised list every 5 years. Also, as required by […]
A company in Waverly, Ohio, was recently fined over $56,000 for violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) lead standard concerning exposure monitoring and the use of personal protective equipment. Today we will review the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for lead, take a look at what happened in this particular case, and urge […]
Following its Clean Air Act (CAA) residual risk and technology review (RTR) of its 1995 National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) covering aerospace manufacturing and rework facilities, the EPA is amending NESHAP by establishing requirements for specialty coating operations, which were not previously subject to NESHAP.
Q. Can you please help me translate the federal rule regarding an “Onsite Consolidation facility”?
This is Thanksgiving week and as environment, health, and safety (EHS) professionals, we all want to make sure employees are at home celebrating with their families and not at the hospital, or worse, because of an inadvertent exposure to chemicals on the job. Today we offer three tips for preventing chemical exposure in the workplace […]