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Following the drowning death of an untrained worker, Lucas Marine Acquisition Co. LLC has been cited for 22 safety violations by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The employee died while doing surface supplied-air diving during underwater construction activities for the City of Fort Pierce Marina storm protection project on Aug. 6, 2013.

People with heart disease should check the daily Air Quality Index forecast and avoid exercising out of doors on bad air quality days, according to the EPA, which has issued a new Public Service Announcement (PSA) to educate the public and healthcare providers about the risks of air pollution to the heart.

A volunteer firefighter and two contractors were killed Feb. 1 in the collapse of two cell phone towers in Clarksburg, West Virginia. News sources report that four workers were tethered to a 300-foot-tall tower while making repairs when the structure fell.

Total releases of toxic chemicals decreased 12 percent from 2011-2012, according to the EPA’s annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) report released this week. The decrease includes an eight percent decline in total toxic air releases, primarily due to reductions in hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions.

While federal regulatory action get the lion’s share of the attention, EHS professionals should pay even more attention to what happens at the state level, according to American Industrial Hygiene Association® (AIHA) government guru, Aaron K. Trippler, for a variety of reasons.

Percent distribution of work-related amputations and employment by industry division and selected industries, private sector, 23 States, 1977.

Motor vehicle crash deaths among children age 12 and younger decreased by 43 percent from 2002-2011, according to a new Vital Signs report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has released a new Prevention through Design paper on Preventing Falls through the Design of Roof Parapets (PDF*).

In the end, the question that must be answered is “will this proposal be better or worse for employee health and safety?” To this, AIHA believes the answer is a resounding “yes”, and AIHA supports OSHA efforts to move forward with the proposed rule.