The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched an initiative to help communities more effectively participate in government decisions related to land cleanup, emergency preparedness and response, and the management of hazardous substances and waste, according to an EPA press release.
EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson returned to the Gulf Coast on Sunday to monitor EPA’s on-the-ground response to the BP oil spill and speak with residents about efforts to mitigate the spill's impact on the region, according to an agency press release.
Honeywell and Sperian Protection announced last week Honeywell’s intent to acquire through a binding sale agreement with Essilor and Mrs. Ginette Dalloz and through the launch of an all-cash tender offer all outstanding shares of Sperian Protection with an aggregate transaction value of approximately USD $1.4 billion, including the assumption of net debt, according to a Honeywell press release.
Healthcare and emergency personnel are workers regularly at risk of contracting diseases from exposures to bloodborne pathogens including hepatitis B and C and the human immunodeficiency viruses. OSHA issued a Bloodborne Pathogens standard in 1991 to protect healthcare workers from exposure to potentially infectious blood. The agency is now conducting a review to determine the standard's effectiveness.
OSHA is confirming the effective date of June 15, 2010 for the direct final rule requiring employers to notify their workers of all hexavalent chromium exposures. The rule revises a provision in OSHA's Hexavalent Chromium standard that required workers be notified only when they experienced exposures exceeding the permissible exposure limit. Workers exposed to this toxic chemical are at greater risk for lung cancer and damage to the nose, throat and respiratory tract.
An OSHA whistleblower investigation has found that CSX Transportation Inc. retaliated against a veteran employee in its Selkirk, N.Y., dispatch office who repeatedly reported safety concerns to his managers, the Federal Railroad Administration and OSHA, according to an OSHA press release.
OSHA has fined VT Halter Marine Inc., a shipbuilder, for $1,322,000 following a November 2009 explosion and fire that killed two workers and seriously injured two other workers, according to an agency press release. The incident occurred in the inner bottom void of a tugboat that was being constructed at the company’s Escatawpa, Miss., facility.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), according to a recent agency press release, has further defined its plans for a series of public hearings in the investigation of the April 5 explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va. The public hearings will commence after the initial witness interviews are completed.
OSHA announced in a recent press release that it is distributing thousands of safety guides and fact sheets to employees involved with the oil spill cleanup along the Gulf Coast.
Two refineries owned by oil giant BP account for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors over the past three years, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis published this week.