Some employees are only briefly exposed and that involves occasional tasks like those employees who are carpenters, plumbers, and electricians who’s only contact may be briefly drilling a hole in concrete, mixing concrete for post holes, pouring concrete footers and foundations or removing form work.
If you can answer no to this statement then no other action is required but if you can answer yes, they could be exposed then you need to move forward with compliance. So per the road map laid out by OSHA the requirements for meeting the standard apply if your employees could be exposed to respirable crystalline silica under any circumstances, including the failure of engineering controls. At this point you will be required to provide dust controls and/or provide respirators to workers when controls cannot limit exposure levels to the permissible exposure limits. At 50 micrograms of silica per cubic meter of air averaged over an eight hour day you are required to protect. Even though the law has been passed OSHA has deferred enforcement until September 23rd of 2017 allowing the construction industry time to get prepared.Įmployers who do not utilize Table 1 will need to measure the amount of silica their employees are exposed to, if you expose your employees to a level of silica at or above 25 micrograms of silica per cubic meter of air averaged over an eight hour day you are required to act. You need to be prepared to implement this standard.
yes dirt, silica is a naturally occurring mineral and if you work in the excavation industry you may be exposing your employees to silica. So this is all good information right, but does this affect me, if you work around sand, concrete, masonry, stone, certain drywall joint compounds, dirt…. In addition to which method you choose you will be required to implement a written exposure control plan, identify a competent person, restrict housekeeping that exposes employees to silica, train and communicate to workers the hazards associated with working around silica and keep records exposure data and medical exams. So what will be required by you the employer, as an employer you will be required to limit employee exposure to respiratory crystalline silica by fully and properly utilizing one of the methods identified in Table 1 of the standard or you can measure independently an employee’s exposure to silica and make a decision on what controls to use. Exposure occurs while using masonry saws, grinders, drills, using heavy equipment among other tasks. So are you affected by this change, currently OSHA estimates around 2 million construction workers are exposed to respiratory crystalline silica on 600,000 worksites and 840,000 are exposed to levels that exceed the new permissible limits. In the Construction Industry compliance will be required by Septemwith General Industry and Hydraulic Fracturing compliance will be required by June 23rd of 2018.
In 2013 after reviewing new scientific data, holding public hearings and building industry consensus the new rule was proposed. The recent awareness of Silica and this standard should not be news to you, the US Department of Labor originally identified Silica as a hazardous substance in the 1930’s, in 1971 when OSHA was created standards were set as to permissible exposure limits (PELS). Recently OSHA revised the Silica standard to include some new provisions and requirements, but what does this mean to you, the General Contractor, the Sub-Contractor or the employee.
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