Silica dust can cause a host of occupational lung diseases
So why is the Obama Administration quietly
smothering rules that could protect workers?
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Construction workers breathe it. So do road
crews, and miners, and workers in foundries, quar-
ries, glass-making, sand-blasting and hydraulic
fracturing (fracking) operations. It’s known as
crystalline silica. It’s present in sand, rock, brick
and concrete, and it’s said to make up 12 percent
of the earth’s crust. But breathed in as dust, in
quantity and over time, crystalline silica can cause
a host of occupational lung diseases, including sil-
icosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, and lung cancer.
“With silica, the biggest threat isn’t the stuff
that you see — it’s the stuff that you can’t see,”
explains Shawn Lenczowski, coordinator of the
Oregon and Southwest Washington Mason Trades
Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee.
“The particles are so small that when you breathe
them in, they cut your lung tissue, and cause tiny
scars in your lungs. Over time, the scars build up,
and your lung capacity is depleted.”
Silicosis is the name for the condition Lenc-
zowski describes. It’s one of the oldest known oc-
cupational diseases, and it’s irreversible.
At least 1.7 million U.S. workers are exposed
to respirable crystalline silica, according to the Na-
tional Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH), a unit of the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control. At the highest risk are those whose work
APRIL 19, 2013
involves sand-blasting, or cutting, blasting, chip-
ping, grinding, and sawing stone, brick, or con-
crete. It’s estimated that each year there are up-
wards of 3,600 new cases of silicosis, and nearly
150 silicosis deaths.
Yet silicosis is entirely preventable.
“This is not rocket science,” says Peg Semi-
nario, occupational safety expert at the national
AFL-CIO. “You need to use water to suppress the
dust.” And have proper ventilation. And personal
protective equipment. And training on how to
minimize risk.
You might think those things would be re-
quired by the Occupational Safety and Health Ad-
ministration (OSHA) — which has a mandate un-
der federal law to protect worker health and safety.
You’d be wrong.
OSHA sets a “permissible exposure limit” for
silica dust, using a complex formula based on the
amount of quartz in air samples. But it doesn’t re-
quire employers to measure that exposure. Nor are
employers required to conduct periodic medical
examinations of exposed workers, inform them
about the hazards of silica, use safer methods like
wet cutting, install ventilation controls, or even
provide workers with personal protective equip-
ment such as dust masks or ventilators.
And OSHA’s permissible exposure limit, set in
1972, was based on the scientific consensus of
1968, relying on
studies from the early
1960s.
In 1974, just two
years after OSHA set
the silica exposure
limit, NIOSH recom-
mended that limit be
cut in half. OSHA be-
gan working on up-
dating its silica rule
that year.
That was 39 years
ago. It still hasn’t
happened. But the
science on silica has
advanced greatly. In the late 1990s, respirable
crystalline silica was added to the list of known
human carcinogens. New methods of air sampling
were developed to make tests more accurate.
Equipment makers developed and improved con-
crete saws with attached hoses or tanks to prevent
silica from becoming airborne.
In 2002, during President George W. Bush’s
first term, OSHA announced that an updated silica
rule would be a priority. But after OSHA sent a
proposed rule to a small business panel for review,
work on the regulation halted.
In 2009, the Obama Administration also named
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
silica as a priority. And on Feb. 14, 2011, OSHA
submitted a “draft silica proposed standard” for
review by the White House Office of Information
and Regulatory Analysis (OIRA), which is part of
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The review was supposed to last 90 days. But 795
days later, it’s still there.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act,
signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, says
nothing about review by OMB or OIRA. The law
created OSHA, and gave it authority to set manda-
tory occupational safety and health standards, “to
assure so far as possible every working man and
(Turn to Page 6)
PAGE 3