National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association President & CEO Michael Johnson issued the following statement on Friday's release of the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA) proposed silica rule.
“While we are reviewing the totality of MSHA’s proposed silica rule just released today, the rule contains changes we anticipated, including a lowering of the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) from 100 µg/m3 to 50 µg/m3; the implementation of engineering controls followed by administrative controls to meet the PEL; exposure sampling; and medical surveillance.
“We are pleased to find the proposed rule includes PPE as an acceptable control measure for compliance. However, there are some areas where the proposal needs to be improved. We are disappointed to see that the rule does not include a “Table 1,” similar to OSHA’s silica standard for construction. We also disagree with the inclusion of an action level of 25.
“NSSGA plans to prepare comments for submission to urge MSHA to make necessary improvements to the rule once the proposal is published in the Federal Register. We will also urge MSHA to provide sufficient time between the final rule and the effective date of the rule for the mining community, particularly the small operators, to come into compliance. We appreciate MSHA’s efforts and look forward to continuing to work with them to improve this proposal.”
