Combustible Dust Hearings this Wednesday.

This Wednesday, I saw a blog posting on combustible dust. This posting deals with OSHA’s lack of rules in relation to combustible dust. And the posting has all kinds of linky-goodness to multiple sites, including a petition.


Dustexplosions.blogspot has a good primer on the issue:

First off, lets all understand and be in complete agreement that combustible dusts are a subset of combustible particulate solids (CPS). In its raw form combustible dusts did not arrive at the facility rear loading docks. Instead combustible particulate solids were trucked in. That’s where the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) enter the picture, since these documents communicate the potential hazards of handling combustible particulate solids, which in their initial packaged state are mostly not hazardous at all.

For instance, after the facility receives the combustible particulate solids, the solid is then transformed into a finished product. During the production phase, which can include such activities as shipping, handling, conveying, mixing, pulverizing, etc. It's during this phase that combustible dusts are generated and a potential hazardous atmosphere can develop when minimum explosive concentrations (MEC) are partnered with a minimum ignition energy (MIE) to produce a potential explosion or fire.

The House Committee on Education and Labor will be discussing this legislation this Wednesday morning. Let your representatives know how you feel about work place safety. You can read the bill here

For more specific information about this issue, I’d suggest you take a look at the following sites:
http://dustexplosions.blogspot.com/
http://oshaunderground.blogspot.com/
United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities
Joe’s Union-Review
Googlemap of combustible gas explosions