Most safety professionals practice the hierarchy of controls: Elimination/Substitution, Engineering Controls, Administrative Controls, and LASTLY Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). But there is always this thing called “feasibility” when it came to asking for capital to install “engineering controls”. Earlier this year OSHA issued a memo discussing how they would enforce 1910.95(b)(1), which requires employers to utilize feasible administrative and engineering controls BEFORE using PPE. So clearly OSHA expects us to follow the hierarchy of controls, which have been around since the inception of industrial safety. However, OSHA received a lot of pushback about the memo and withdrew it several months later (was not sure why at the time). A few months later, late summer, OSHA revised their Technical Manual by adding an entire chapter on Noise! OUTSTANDING materials for both OSHA and safety/IH professionals to use in our hearing conservation efforts. But I digress…
In this new chapter, OSHA establishes their guidelines as to what is “feasible administrative or engineering controls”. It is actually quite detailed guidance, although I am not sure what legal implications this Technical Manual has on issuing citations against 1910.95. Here is a taste of what the manual states:
First lets establish what 1910.95(b)(1) states: (emphasis added by me)
When employees are subjected to sound exceeding those listed in Table G-16, feasible administrative or engineering controls shall be utilized. If such controls fail to reduce sound levels within the levels of Table G-16, personal protective equipment shall be provided and used to reduce sound levels within the levels of the table.
Here is a taste of what the manual states:
This section suggests methods that CSHOs can use to evaluate the economic feasibility of noise engineering controls relative to current enforcement policy (seeCPL 2-2.35A Appendix A and OSHA’s Field Operations Manual) and for pre-citation documentation purposes. These methods are useful whenever the daily noise exposure exceeds the levels listed in 29 CFR 1910.95 and 20 CFR 1926.52.
The economic feasibility of noise engineering controls has been calculated using several different methods over the past decade. The primary difference between the methods involves how the costs of noise exposure are calculated (i.e., to what extent calculations include potential disability claims, workers’ compensation insurance rates, purchase of hearing aids, purchase of HPDs, and the various costs of administering a hearing conservation program). Differences in how inflation is adjusted also create notable variations in both the costs of noise exposure and expenses related to purchasing, installing, and maintaining engineering controls.
In 2001, OSHA Region III produced an instruction on conducting economic feasibility evaluations for noise-control engineering. This instruction was based in part on information published in the Regulatory Impact and Regulatory Flexibility Analysis of the Hearing Conservation Amendment, OSHA Office of Regulatory Analysis, February 1983.
More recently, several sources have offered more detailed methods for evaluating the costs of noise and benefits of noise control (described in Appendix G).
The rest of this section presents information adapted from the Region III (2001) instruction mentioned above (Directive Number STD 1-4.1A).
The assumptions and tables in this section contain examples of approximate costs and other related information. This information is used here to demonstrate (through examples) some simple methods that CSHOs can use when considering economic feasibility of engineering controls compared to a hearing conservation program. The numbers used in these assumptions, tables, and examples should be refined as appropriate for each inspection and locality.
CLICK HERE to see all of Chapter 5 – Noise