GHS introduces a set of criteria for categorizing the human health, physical and environmental hazards of hazardous substances. Prior to GHS, a substance could have been classified as toxic, non-hazardous or harmful to health depending on which country/tracking block the classification has been made (Canadian WHMIS, EU DPD, etc.). GHS harmonizes these different systems, and new classification criteria could create a higher, lower, identical or new classification for a product compared to the previous system. The new standard also has far-reaching implications for the format of, and data contained within, material safety data sheets (MSDS) and product labels.

In addition, the promulgation of the final rule will affect millions of workplaces and have a profound effect on the supply chain. Upstream, manufacturers and distributors will be required to conform to new safety data sheet (SDS) format and content requirements. Downstream, producers, importers and distributors will have a 3-year transition period to be in full compliance. The proposed rule also includes a provision that requires employers to train all employees on the new label elements and the standardized safety data sheet format within 2 years after the publication of the HCS final rule.

For some, transitioning to GHS has been coined as an “avalanche” or a “tidal wave.” However, if the appropriate tools are in place to handle the transition, the volume and scope of change ahead does not need to be daunting.

In response to these challenges, we developed a five-step program (detailed below), which outlines best practices when developing a GHS transition strategy for a workplace. This guide will ensure a company is ready for when GHS SDS and labels begin to filter down the supply chain. These steps are cyclical, as information will continue to be added and updated as this new requirement is implemented.

What Should We be Doing?

The first step of any SDS management program is sourcing relevant SDS for all hazardous products onsite. What should your company be doing?

Inventory preparation – Accurate inventory management is the cornerstone of any comprehensive SDS management program. Ensure you know what products on your shelves, and that each one has a corresponding SDS.

Make a note of the current classification, labeling and packaging of each substances and mixture. This is important information, as it needs to be compared with new GHS classification when available.

Create a schedule to begin contacting suppliers to request updated documents. Suppliers may send you updated SDS even if you have not placed a new order, so keep a note of these incoming documents to eliminate redundant efforts.

Administer GHS Information to Employees.

The second step in the cycle is distributing GHS SDS throughout your company, especially to employees. What should your company be doing?

SDS should be stored in paper and/or electronic repositories that easily are accessible by employees. Having SDS organized in a centralized repository from which each department or location can pull documents will help increase productivity by removing workload duplication. It also yields consolidation and transparency of information across departments and locations.

Incorporate a process to quickly update repositories as new or updated SDS come on site. This could mean photocopying the new SDS and manually putting it into paper binders throughout a plant, or loading it into a local or centralized electronic system.

Prepare repositories and update employee procedures to handle increased volume of incoming GHS SDS from suppliers during transition period.

Test the Waters

Following the receipt of an SDS with GHS information, the third step in the cycle is to review the new SDS and compare with the previous version to evaluate changes. What should your company be doing?

Before any information can be compared and evaluated, you will need to put in place a structured, streamlined process for extracting and viewing old and new information.

Once this is in place, information can be evaluated from each SDS to see if the re-classified products will have any ramifications. The United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) calculated that it requires an employee 1 hour to review the labels and SDS for each product. This equates to a large expenditure of time and money when performed manually.

Implementing the GHS information

The fourth step in the cycle is utilizing the new information. What should your company be doing?

GHS information was created to improve hazard information available to employees. Exposing simple text to employees as much as possible helps circumvent accidents through proper understanding of the hazards and the required precautionary measures.

All containers should be appropriately labeled. As you move a product from its primary container to a secondary container, labels should be replaced.

Keep abreast of regulatory reporting needs for all products. Regulatory lists never stop evolving. This, mixed with the classification changes of your products, means an extra stringent eye is required to ensure you are aware of all regulatory responsibilities.

Educate the Affected Employees

The fifth step in the cycle is to educate. What should your company be doing?

There are three different groups that require training.

Self educate: First and foremost, it is vital that you are familiar with the downstream responsibilities under GHS. Only then will you be in a position to educate other people. GHS is updated regularly, and it is vital to understand new impacts.

Educate employees: Employees should be trained to become comfortable GHS. They should know:

? Where to find information on new GHS-formatted SDS and labels.

? How to interpret GHS information.

Also be aware of nomenclature changes. For example, in the United States, “MSDS” is replaced with SDS, and in the European Union, “preparation” was replaced with “mixture.”

Educate customers: Manufacturers/wholesalers/retailers may play a voluntary role in educating customers as customers navigate new information coming through the supply chain. Classification clarification may be required for the products they are buying.

While this has been segmented into its own section for explanatory purposes, training is required throughout the transition, so apply this training methodology accordingly.

If your workplace operates in a country that has not implemented GHS, but imports from countries that have, GHS information may appear sooner than expected, which will require earlier training.

Following this five-step program will ensure GHS information is sourced, distributed, evaluated, utilized and understood within the workplace.

Greenleaf Management Inc. offers training and implementation of the GHS throughout your organization.  Whether you are a large corporation, or a small individual plant we can assist during your transition to the new system.  Contact us today.

The study, released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, British Columbia, found that many problems ascribed to hydraulic fracturing are related to processes common to all oil and gas drilling operations, such as casing failures or poor cement jobs.

University researchers also concluded that many reports of contamination can be traced to above-ground spills or other mishandling of wastewater produced from shale gas drilling, rather than from hydraulic fracturing per se, said Charles “Chip” Groat, an Energy Institute associate director who led the project.

“These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing,” he said.

The research team examined evidence contained in reports of groundwater contamination attributed to hydraulic fracturing in three prominent shale plays — the Barnett Shale in North Texas; the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, New York and portions of Appalachia; and the Haynesville Shale in western Louisiana and northeast Texas.

The report identifies regulations related to shale gas development and evaluates individual states’ capacity to enforce existing regulations. In addition, university researchers analyzed public perceptions of hydraulic fracturing, as derived from popular media, scientific literature and online surveys.

“Our goal was to provide policymakers a foundation for developing sensible regulations that ensure responsible shale gas development,” Groat said. “What we’ve tried to do is separate fact from fiction.”

Faculty members from across The University of Texas at Austin campus participated in the research, which the Energy Institute funded. The Environmental Defense Fund also assisted in developing the scope of work and methodology for the study.

Groat said researchers will supplement the study released Thursday with an examination of reports relating to atmospheric emissions and seismic activity attributed to hydraulic fracturing, which have emerged as significant issues of concern in recent months.

Hydraulic fracturing involves the high-pressure injection of water, sand and chemicals into a shale bed, which causes the rock to shatter, releasing natural gas. The practice has been in use for decades but has come under scrutiny in recent years from environmentalists and others who fear it poses a threat to public health.

Other findings from the Energy Institute study include:

• Natural gas found in water wells within some shale gas areas (e.g., Marcellus) can be traced to natural sources and probably was present before the onset of shale gas operations.
• Although some states have been proactive in overseeing shale gas development, most regulations were written before the widespread use of hydraulic fracturing.
• Media coverage of hydraulic fracturing is decidedly negative, and few news reports mention scientific research related to the practice.
• Overall, surface spills of fracturing fluids pose greater risks to groundwater sources than from hydraulic fracturing itself.
• The lack of baseline studies in areas of shale gas development makes it difficult to evaluate the long-term, cumulative effects and risks associated with hydraulic fracturing.
• Groat also provided an overview of two other Energy Institute initiatives related to the use of hydraulic fracturing in shale gas development.

The first project, which will commence in April, is a detailed case study focusing on claims of groundwater contamination in North Texas’ Barnett Shale. The research will entail an examination of various aspects of shale gas development, including site preparation, drilling, production, and handling and disposal of flow-back water. Researchers also will identify and document activities unrelated to shale gas development that have resulted in water contamination. It will also assess the quantity of fresh groundwater used in shale gas development and evaluate ways to reduce the amount.

A second project, currently under development, would include a field and laboratory investigation of whether hydrological connectivity exists between water in the units above and below the shale unit being fractured as a result of the fracturing process. As envisioned, the project calls for university researchers to conduct field sampling of hydraulic fracturing fluid, flow-back water, produced water, and water from aquifers and other geologic units within the Barnett Shale.

“We will continue to put accessible, meaningful information in the hands of the American people. Widespread public access to environmental information is fundamental to the work EPA does every day,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “TRI is a cornerstone of EPA’s community-right-to-know programs and has played a significant role in protecting people’s health and the environment by providing communities with valuable information on toxic chemical releases.”

Citizens have a right to know what toxic chemicals are being released into their communities. Over the past 25 years, the TRI program has helped citizens, emergency planners, public health officials, and others protect human health and the environment by providing them with toxic chemical release and other waste management data they need to make decisions that affect the safety and welfare of their communities.

The 2010 TRI data show that 3.93 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into the environment nationwide, a 16 percent increase from 2009. The increase is mainly due to changes in the metal mining sector, which typically involves large facilities handling large volumes of material. In this sector, even a small change in the chemical composition of the ore being mined — which EPA understands is one of the reasons for the increase in total reported releases — may lead to big changes in the amount of toxic chemicals reported nationally. Several other sectors also reported increases in toxic releases in 2010, including the chemical and primary metals industries.

Total air releases decreased 6 percent since 2009, continuing a trend seen over the past several years. Releases into surface water increased 9 percent and releases into land increased 28 percent since 2009, again due primarily to the metal mining sector.

EPA has improved this year’s TRI national analysis report by adding new information on facility efforts to reduce pollution and by considering whether economic factors could have affected the TRI data. With this report and EPA’s Web-based TRI tools, citizens can access information about the toxic chemical releases into the air, water, and land that occur locally. Finally, EPA’s first mobile application for accessing TRI data, myRTK, is now available in Spanish, as are expanded Spanish translations of national analysis documents and Web pages.

TRI data is submitted annually to EPA and states by multiple industry sectors including manufacturing, metal mining, electric utilities, and commercial hazardous waste facilities. Facilities must report their toxic chemical releases to EPA under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) by July 1st of each year. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 also requires information on waste management activities related to TRI chemicals.

More on the 2010 TRI analysis and TRI Web-based tools: http://www.epa.gov/tri

More on myRTK: http://www.epa.gov/tri/myrtk/

“EPA is increasing the availability of critical health and safety studies on chemicals that children and families are exposed to every day. We are making important progress in making this information public and giving the American public easy access to it,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “Over the next year, we expect to review several thousand additional studies on industrial chemicals and make many of these more accessible to the public.”

Since 2009, 577 formerly confidential chemical identities are no longer confidential and more than 1,000 health and safety studies are now accessible to the public that were previously unavailable or only available in limited circumstances. In 2010 EPA issued new guidance outlining the agency’s plans to deny confidentiality claims for chemical identities in health and safety studies under the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that are determined to not be entitled to CBI status. EPA has been reviewing CBI claims in new and existing TSCA filings containing health and safety studies.

Consistent with the guidance, the agency will request that the submitter voluntarily relinquish the CBI claims and make the newly available studies available to the public. EPA also challenged the chemical industry to make available information that was previously classified as CBI. To date, more than 35 companies have agreed to review previously submitted filings containing health and safety studies and determine if any CBI claims may no longer be necessary. The newly available information can be found under a new “declassified tab” using the Chemical Data Access Tool, launched in December 2010 to assist the public in retrieving chemical health and safety information submitted to EPA under TSCA.

For additional information, please visit:  http://www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/transparency.html

“Facilities that operate in our backyards have a responsibility to follow our nation’s environmental laws, like the Clean Air Act, which is designed to protect the air we breathe and the local environment,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Today’s guilty plea shows that businesses that choose to ignore these critical safeguards and put their employees and the public at risk will face serious consequences.”

“Pelican had demonstrated a manifest disregard for accepted practices that are designed to protect human health and the environment,” said Assistant Attorney General Moreno. “Today, Pelican faces significant penalties for its egregious violations of its Clean Air Act permit and for submitting false information to state officials.”

If the court sentences according to the terms in today’s plea agreement, Pelican will pay $12 million in criminal penalties, including $2 million in community service payments that will go toward various environmental projects in Louisiana, including air pollution monitoring. It would mark the largest ever criminal fine in Louisiana for violations of the Clean Air Act. Pelican would also be banned from future refinery operations unless and until it implements an environmental compliance plan, which includes external auditing by independent firms and oversight by a court appointed monitor.

In pleading guilty, officials of Pelican, headquartered in Houston and operating a refinery in Lake Charles, La., admitted that the company had violated numerous aspects of its permit to operate. The violations were discovered during a March 2006 inspection by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which identified numerous unsafe operating conditions. Pelican also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for submitting materially false deviation reports to LDEQ, the agency that administers the federal Clean Air Act in Louisiana.

Pelican has admitted to the following:

• Pelican had no company budget, no environmental department and no environmental manager;

• In order to comply with a permit issued under the Clean Air Act, the refinery was required to use certain key pollution prevention equipment, but that equipment was either not functioning, poorly maintained, improperly installed, improperly placed into service and/or improperly calibrated;

• It was a routine practice for over a year to use an emergency flare gun to re-light the flare tower at the refinery which was designed to burn off toxic gasses and provide for the safe combustion of potentially explosive chemicals; because the pilot light was not functioning properly, employees would take turns trying to shoot the flare gun to relight the explosive gasses;

• Sour crude oil was stored in a tank that was not properly placed into service and remained in the tank after the roof sank;

• A caustic scrubber designed to remove hydrogen sulfide from emissions was bypassed; and

• A continuous emission monitoring system (CEMS) designed to measure the hydrogen sulfide levels in refinery emissions was not working properly.

Byron Hamilton, the Pelican vice-president who oversaw operations at the Lake Charles refinery since 2005 from an office in Houston pleaded guilty on July 6, 2011, to negligently placing persons in imminent danger of death and serious bodily injury as a result of negligent releases at the refinery. Hamilton faces up to one year in prison and a $200,000 fine for each of the two Clean Air Act counts.

The government’s investigation of the Pelican Refinery is continuing. Under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, crime victims are afforded certain statutory rights, including the opportunity to attend all public hearings and provide input to the prosecution. Any person adversely impacted is encouraged to learn more about the case and the Crime Victims’ Rights Act or you may contact the Victim Witness Coordinator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Louisiana.

The criminal investigation is being conducted by the EPA Criminal Investigation Division in Baton Rouge and the Louisiana State Police, with assistance from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. The case is being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Stephanie Finley, Richard A. Udell, Senior Trial Attorney of the Environmental Crimes Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, Trial Attorney Christopher Hale with the Environmental Crimes Section.

More information on EPA’s criminal enforcement program: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/criminal/index.html

The SST program is OSHA’s main programmed inspection plan for non-construction workplaces that have 20 or more workers. High-hazard workplaces identified in the SST program reported above-average work-related injury and illness rates, based on data collected from a 2010 OSHA Data Initiative survey of 80,000 larger establishments in selected high-hazard industries. Establishments are randomly selected for inspection from a primary list of 3,700 manufacturing, non-manufacturing, and nursing and personal care facilities.

“By focusing our inspection resources on employers in high hazard industries who endanger their employees, we can prevent injuries and illnesses and save lives,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA David Michaels. “Through the SST program we examine all major aspects of these operations to determine the effectiveness of their safety and health efforts.”

Two changes have been made to this year’s SST program. In 2010, only those establishments in the selected industries with 40 or more employees were subject to inspections under the SST plan; this year, that number has been reduced to 20 or more. An evaluation study measuring the program’s impact on future compliance with OSHA standards has also been introduced for the 2011 program.

In addition to the SST program, OSHA implements both national and local emphasis inspection programs to target high-risk hazards and industries. OSHA currently has 14 National Emphasis Programs that intensify inspections related to amputations, lead, crystalline silica, shipbreaking, trenching/excavations, petroleum refinery process safety management, process safety management covered chemical facilities, hexavalent chromium, diacetyl, recordkeeping, federal agencies, air traffic control tower monitoring, primary metals and combustible dust. OSHA also has approximately 140 Regional and Local Emphasis Programs (REPs and LEPs).

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 assure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.

Secretary LaHood said, “We’ve got unemployed construction workers, standing by, ready to roll up their sleeves right now.  This is the moment for Congress to set aside the politics and partisanship, to pass the American Jobs Act, and to put America back to work.”

In his address to the nation last night, President Obama called on Congress to pass the American Jobs Act, which will invest in job-creating transportation projects and establish a National Infrastructure Bank, a concept with strong bipartisan support. There is also wide agreement among business leaders, labor unions, economists and elected officials that making significant investments in America’s roads, rails, and airports will not only put hundreds of thousands of people to work quickly, it is crucial to the nation’s future economic growth and prosperity.

Steven Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors, said, “There are few more effective ways to create good jobs, deliver great roads, build a strong economy and protect taxpayers than to invest in infrastructure.  That is why the Associated General Contractors of America stands with the President and everyone else that is willing to make the investments needed to revive our industry and rebuild our economy.”  Associated General Contractors is one of the nation’s largest trade associations for the construction industry.

Secretary LaHood also called on Congress to immediately pass an extension of the surface transportation bill, which is set to expire on September 30. If Congress allows the current surface transportation extension to expire, more than 4,000 federal employees will immediately go without pay. If Congress delays actions for just 10 days beyond that, nearly $1 billion in highway funding that could be spent on construction projects across the nation would be lost. And if Congress waits even longer, almost 1 million workers could be in danger of losing their jobs over the next year.

Secretary LaHood spoke at the construction site of the 11th Street Bridge Project in Washington, D.C., which could be shut down if Congress fails to pass a surface transportation extension by September 30. There are roughly 380 workers on the 11th Street Bridge project, which will reduce congestion by replacing two existing bridges with three new bridges and improving interchanges for local and freeway traffic. By 2030, these bridges will serve almost 180,000 vehicles every day – helping the region become more economically competitive.  Scheduled for completion in 2013, the $300-million project is being completed with $189 million in federal-aid.

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Transportation announced today that in the last two years, the Obama Administration has issued as many imminent hazard orders placing unsafe bus and truck companies out of service as in the previous 10 years combined. As part of the administration’s effort to step up motorcoach safety, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has cracked down on unsafe carriers through surprise inspections, full compliance reviews, and enforcement actions. 

Between 2000 and 2009, FMCSA issued a total of 14 imminent hazard orders placing unsafe carriers out of service. In just the last two years, FMCSA has already issued another 14 imminent hazard orders to take carriers that pose an immediate risk to passengers off the road. For example, last month the Department of Transportation issued an imminent hazard order to a Michigan company found to be transporting passengers in luggage compartments, at great risk to passengers. 

“From Day One, I have pledged to put public safety above all else, and we will continue to take action when we see carriers placing passengers at risk,” said U.S Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.  “We have seen the tragic consequences of unsafe practices – whether it’s ignoring fatigue regulations, providing inadequate driver training, or failing to conduct the proper maintenance of a bus or motorcoach. We continue using all of the tools at our disposal to get unsafe carriers off the road and hope that Congress will act on our proposal to provide us with the necessary authority to expand our safety oversight.”

In just the past four months, FMCSA has issued eight out-of-service orders. FMCSA issued these orders immediately following safety investigations that found the carriers and/or the drivers to be in such substantial non-compliance with federal safety regulations as to pose an imminent hazard to public safety. The eight imminent hazard out-of-service orders in 2011 have been issued to seven interstate motorcoach companies: two each based in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and one each in Michigan, Mississippi and North Carolina.  One order was issued to a Tennessee-based truck driver.   

“I’m proud of FMCSA’s efforts to crack down and take action on unsafe interstate bus and trucking companies,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro.  “Our safety investigators, inspectors and state partners will continue demanding that motor carriers and their drivers adhere to safety requirements.  While most of the industry operates safely, I also look forward to working with Congress to add new tools to prevent unsafe companies and drivers from operating.” 

The Obama Administration has also doubled the number of bus inspections and comprehensive safety reviews of the nation’s estimated 4,000 passenger bus companies. Roadside inspections of motorcoaches have jumped nearly 100 percent, from 12,991 in 2005 to 25,703 in 2010, while compliance reviews are up 128 percent, from 457 in 2005 to 1,042 in 2010. In addition, FMCSA has initiated a greater number of enforcement cases against unsafe passenger carriers under the current administration: these cases have risen from 36 in 2008 to 44 in 2010. 

In May, FMCSA and its state and local law enforcement partners conducted more than 3,000 surprise passenger carrier safety inspections over a two-week period that resulted in 442 unsafe buses or drivers being removed from the nation’s roadways. The strike force took 127 unsafe drivers and 315 unsafe vehicles off the road during these unannounced inspections. 

The DOT has asked Congress to provide FMCSA with greater authority to pursue unsafe “reincarnated” passenger carriers by establishing a uniform federal standard to help determine whether a new carrier is a reincarnation of an old, unsafe carrier.

The DOT has also asked Congress to approve a new procedure that would allow FMCSA to conduct bus safety inspections at en route locations such as rest stops, and to require new motorcoach companies to undergo a full safety audit before receiving operating authority. 

To ensure passenger carriers operating in violation of DOT regulations are punished, DOT has asked Congress to raise the penalty for operating illegally or without authority from $2,000 a day to $25,000 per violation.

The DOT also unveiled a “Think Safety: Every Trip, Every Time” pre-trip safety checklist that helps consumers review a bus company’s safety record, safety rating and U.S. DOT operating authority before buying a ticket or hiring a bus company for group travel. The checklist is available online at FMCSA’s Passenger Bus Safety Web site: http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety-security/pcs/Index.aspx. FMCSA encourages consumers to report any unsafe bus company, vehicle or driver to the agency through a toll free hotline 1-888-DOT-SAFT (1-888-368-7238) or FMCSA’s consumer complaint Web site: http://nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov/HomePage.asp.

In a study just published online in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have associated indoor air pollution with increased blood pressure among older women.

In a remote area of Yunnan Province, China, 280 women in an ethnic minority called the Naxi wore a portable device that sampled the air they were breathing for 24 hours. The Naxi live in compounds including a central, free-standing kitchen that often has both a stove and a fire pit, says Jill Baumgartner, who performed the study with National Science Foundation funding while a Ph.D. student at UW-Madison.

“I spent a lot of time watching women cook in these unvented kitchens, and within seconds, my eyes would burn, it would get a little difficult to breathe. The women talk about these same discomforts, but they are viewed as just another hardship of rural life,” Baumgartner said.

Most women are exposed to this smoke for several hours a day, and even if the cookstove is vented, a second fire is often burning for heat, says Baumgartner, who is now a global renewable energy leadership fellow at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.

By correlating exposure over 24 hours with blood pressure, Baumgartner and colleagues associated higher levels of indoor air pollution with a significantly higher blood pressure among women aged 50 and over. Small-particle pollution raises blood pressure over the short term by stimulating the nervous system to constrict blood vessels. In the long term, the particles can cause oxidative stress, which likewise raises blood pressure.

Other studies have shown that improved stoves or cleaner fuels can cut indoor air pollution by 50 to 75 percent. In the Baumgartner study, that reduction in pollution level was linked to a four-point reduction in systolic blood pressure (the first number in a blood pressure reading). Such a change “may be of little consequence for an individual,” said co-author Leonelo Baustista, an associate professor of population health sciences at UW-Madison. “However, changes of this magnitude in a population would have a significant, large impact on the risk of cardiovascular disease in the population.”

In fact, the researchers concluded that this reduction would translate into an 18 percent decrease in coronary heart disease and a 22 percent decrease in stroke among Asian women age 50 to 59. These benefits would save the lives of 230,900 Chinese women each year.

Because biomass fuels are also the primary source of energy for more than 2 billion people globally, cleaner fuels and better stoves would produce even greater cardiovascular benefits worldwide.

“This is the first study that links personal exposure to indoor air pollution to blood pressure changes; considering that a couple of billion people are exposed, this represents an extremely important public health discovery,” says co-author Jonathan Patz, director of the UW Global Health Institute.

“We have known for years that unvented cooking indoors causes respiratory damage, but now that we have documented cardiovascular effects as well, the rationale for cleaner stoves and better fuels becomes that much stronger,” added Patz, a professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

Although China had a major program to promote cleaner stoves during the 1980s, indoor air pollution problem remains, Baumgartner said.

“Having a cleaner stove or fuel is important, but in these villages, the piece that is missing is education about the health implications. You can have a great stove, but if it is sitting right next to an open fire, the health benefit is lost,” Baumgartner said

WASHINGTON – Since 1980, nearly 150 workers have been killed and more than 850 injured in combustible dust explosions. To explore methods for preventing such explosions, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration invited outside experts to participate in a Combustible Dust Expert Forum May 13, 2011. OSHA will gather experts’ views on possible regulatory options for addressing combustible dust hazards.

Discussions will include identifying regulatory options that can minimize the costs to small- and medium-sized businesses of reducing or preventing combustible dust hazards, while protecting workers from these hazards. Representatives from various industries, academia, research groups, insurance-underwriter organizations, labor, and government will comprise expert representation.

OSHA’s earlier efforts to address combustible dust hazards included a National Emphasis Program in 2007 that targeted inspection efforts on facilities that create or handle combustible dusts. Results from these inspections indicated that facilities had unusually high numbers of general duty clause violations, indicating a strong need for a combustible dust standard. This effort was followed by publication of an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2009, from which the agency received more than 100 comments. Additionally, OSHA held six stakeholders meetings and conducted a Web chat on combustible dust to expand the opportunity for public and stakeholder participation. The agency recognizes the importance of considering options for addressing combustible dust hazards, particularly as they may affect small facilities, in preparation for convening a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act panel.

Combustible dusts include fine particles, fibers, chips, chunks or flakes that, under certain conditions, can cause a fire or explosion when suspended in air. Types of dusts include metal (for example, aluminum and magnesium), wood, plastic, rubber, coal, flour, sugar and paper, among others. Visit OSHA’s Safety and Health Topics page on Combustible Dust to learn more about this dangerous hazard.

The forum will be held at 9 a.m. at the Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. There will be limited space available for non-participating observers, so OSHA asks that only one representative from interested organizations register as an observer. To register as a non-participating observer, contact Bill Hamilton at 202-693-2077 by May 6, 2011. A summary of the forum will be available soon after the meeting on OSHA’s Combustible Dust Web page.

General inquiries should be directed to Mat Chibbaro, Office of Safety Systems, at 202-693-2382. Media inquiries should be directed to Earl Hicks, Office of Communications, at 202-693-1999.

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 assure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.