"Keeping sediment from polluting rivers and streams isn't just a good idea, it's the law," said Jim Werntz, EPA's Idaho state office director.
"There is no excuse for the lack of fall protection, and it's outrageous to think that employers still allow employees to be exposed to fall hazards without ensuring fall protection is in use," said Charles Adkins, OSHA's regional administrator in Kansas City, Mo.
An infection preventionist for more than 26 years, Russell N. Olmsted, MPH, CIC, is epidemiologist in Infection Control Services for St. Joseph Mercy Health System in Ann Arbor, Mich., and a member of Trinity Health, a national Catholic health care network headquartered in Novi, Mich.
Wildfire Prevention Week continues through Friday in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario.
The federal agency directed its staff to continue enhancing the security of cesium chloride radiation sources and encourages research on alternatives, but it agrees near-term replacement is impractical and would harm cancer treatment, research, and emergency response capabilities.
Air quality standards have become more stringent, and, according to EPA, air pollution levels have declined. Still, ground-level ozone and particle matter can pose serious health problems, which is why the index is important.
The "Grand Opportunities" program, highlighted this week by the National Institutes of Health, will invest about $200 million in large-scale research projects to boost public health, health care delivery, and biomedical R&D.
Until April 15, 2011, no state may enforce a law or regulation that conflicts with the exemption, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The California Highway Patrol had commented that the proposal does conflict with its regulations.
Their report on progress toward achieving eight major goals by 2017 shows how the industry as a whole is improving the safety of toxic inhalation hazard and flammable chemical shipments by rail.
The Federal Emergency Management Administration has recently released its Comprehensive Preparedness Guide, CPG 101, which provides general guidelines on developing Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) and promotes a common understanding of the fundamentals of planning and decision making to help emergency planners examine a hazard and produce integrated, coordinated, and synchronized plans. The guide is intended to help emergency managers in state, territorial, local, and tribal governments in their efforts to develop and maintain a viable all-hazard EOP.
"An unguarded excavation can collapse in seconds, crushing and burying workers beneath soil and debris before they have a chance to react or escape," said said Brenda Gordon, OSHA's area director for Boston and southeastern Massachusetts.
The agency yesterday asked coal mine companies to offer help in the research, which will examine methane accumulation in sealed areas like the one that exploded in the Sago Mine, depicted here, in January 2006.
"These violations are indicative of the kinds of safety and health concerns, often found at department stores, that can pose serious risk to employees," said Jean Kulp, director of OSHA's Allentown, Pa., Area Office.
The company disclosed more than 680 violations of water, air, hazardous waste, emergency planning and preparedness, and pesticide regulations to EPA after auditing 12 facilities it acquired from DuPont in 2004.
The company has been fined $121,500 for violations associated with process safety management, hazardous waste operations, and emergency response, including the company's failure to identify all of the causal factors of the incident during the investigation. The chemical release resulted in the evacuation of residents living within a three-mile radius of the facility.
"This order reaffirms both the right of drivers to refuse to operate vehicles when they reasonably believe it is unsafe and the Labor Department's commitment to taking the necessary steps to protect that right," said Ken Nishiyama Atha, OSHA's regional administrator in San Francisco.
Conditions at the worksite resulted in the issuance of 35 serious and two other-than-serious citations following inspections initiated in response to a complaint.
The company has "a highly involved frontline employee workforce, an excellent medical program, and energy control procedures. Safety is valued from the bottom up," said Greg Baxter, OSHA's regional administrator in Denver.
Steven Chu is making his first visit to the Sandia National Laboratories after visiting Los Alamos National Laboratory yesterday. He’ll speak on the labs' role in advancing President Obama's nuclear security agenda.
The initial inspection carried proposed penalties totaling $25,500. The re-inspection carries $108,000 in proposed penalties.