BODY:
As the recent tragic loss of lives attests, combustible dust is a serious workplace hazard that demands vigilant employer adherence to OSHA safety standards. OSHA currently has rigorous regulations on the books to address combustible dust and has a vigorous enforcement and outreach program in place to protect employees.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has recognized that OSHA's existing standards, if followed by employers, protect their employees from combustible dust hazards. Although this decade has witnessed record-low fatality as well as injury and illness rates, individual lives are not statistics, and any loss of life is reason to strive for even better enforcement and prevention.
To boost compliance with OSHA standards, last fall OSHA initiated a nationwide program to increase inspections in high-risk workplaces. During one of these inspections at Imperial Sugar's plant in Gramercy, La., OSHA identified serious combustible dust hazards that we believe posed an imminent danger to employees. That portion of the plant was shut down and the dust is being cleaned up, preventing further employee exposure to a possibly fatal hazard. Also, OSHA recently mailed copies of our Safety and Health Information Bulletin on combustible dust to 30,000 managers of facilities having potential combustible dust hazards.
Advocates of a generic combustible dust standard believe that a "one size fits all" approach is the best way to control this hazard. This is not the case. The materials that produce dusts in a variety of industrial settings vary widely in their combustibility, the way they are produced and the severity of the hazard they pose. Moreover, issuing additional combustible dust regulations may not necessarily translate into safer workplaces.
OSHA's strong and rigorous enforcement and education programs have been very effective over the past seven years, which has led to record-low fatality and illness and injury rates. But the only acceptable result is zero fatalities and injuries and, until that degree of employee safety is attained, OSHA will be constantly looking for ways to improve safety and health enforcement and prevention.
Edwin G. Foulke Jr. is assistant secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.
