Today's Safety News

RSS

Three oil company workers are hospitalized in critical condition this morning after explosions and fires aboard two fuel barges in Mobile, Ala. Sources say the barges, which contained liquid gasoline, were in the process of being cleaned when the incident began in a ship channel near the George C. Wallace Tunnel.

OSHA is developing two additional health National Emphasis Programs (NEPs) that will take affect this year: Nursing and Residential Care Facilities and Isocyanates. NEPs, along with Local Emphasis Programs (LEPs), target high-hazard industries whose workers face increased risks of severe illnesses or severe injuries.

The results were tragic but not surprising last May when Suzanne Randa and her fiance, Thomas Donohoe, crashed while riding Donohoe’s Harley Davidson on Highway 79 near the Southern California city of Loma Linda.

An estimated 123 people are dead after the collapse of a Bangladesh garment factory building Wednesday morning, news sources are reporting. The death toll could rise; many more may be trapped in the rubble.

The reintroduction of a bill that would strengthen the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) is being hailed as a necessary step for protecting U.S. workers by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).

An occupational safety organization says last week’s deadly fertilizer plant explosion in Texas is the result of that state’s anti-regulatory environment. The explosion at the West Fertilizer Company killed 14 people and injured many more.

OSHA has indicated that in FY 2014, it will conduct a total of 39,250 federal inspections – 31,400 safety inspections and 7,850 health inspections.

The results of a landmark study on high-rise fires and the best ways to battle them were released at the 2013 Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Conference in Phoenix, Ariz. last week, prompting many fire departments throughout the United States to re-examine the ways they deal with fires in tall buildings.

With Agency requested funding in FY 2014, OSHA projects that it will issue four Final Rules (Infectious Disease, Recordkeeping Modernization, Beryllium, and Vertical tandem Lifts), seven Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (Standards Improvement Project Phase IV, Infectious Disease, Injury and Illness Prevention Programs, Combustible Dust, Backover Protection, and 2 consensus standard update actions), and initiate SBREFA reviews for five rules (Combustible Dust, Backover Protection, one chemical standard, and two other new initiatives).

In a report released Friday (pdf), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that some of the state-run occupational safety and health programs have failed to meet minimum workplace safety inspection goals because of state budget cuts, reduced staffing, and policies that limit their ability to retain safety and health inspectors.