CHANGE Environmental, LLC provided expert advice and oversight into what reviews and tests were previously done by the Environmental Health and Safety Director, including testing done by the Plants insurance company. Various tests were conducted to assess the ability to quantify respirable quartz fraction contained within the final Garnet Product. CHANGE provided direct expert advice based on the results of these tests as to whether or not the data does or does not warrant support for a downgrade to the current hazard label warning (e.g., respirable fractions are below 0.1%). Both area and personal air samplings were analyzed, and it was found that for all the samples only the air monitoring results of the employee (i.e. Maintenance Department/Operator in the Water Jet Cutting Area) airborne exposures were above the threshold limit Value, (TVL) for quartz silica despite being below the calculated Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Personal Exposure Level, (PEL).
CHANGE Environmental, LLC concluded based on expert review of all expert testing and CHANGES’ follow up testing conducted to redo the Water Jet Cutting Area samples, there was sufficient evidence that would allow the plant to confidently and without delay downgrade their SDS sheets and product labels accordingly.
CHANGE provided several recommendations that would also need to be implemented to better assist in the future air quality exposure assessments in the plant.
