DSS045: History of the OSHA Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program with Brian Edwards

In this episode of the DustSafetyScience Podcast, we’re talking to Brian Edwards, Director of Engineering at Conversion Technology in Norcross, Georgia, about the history of combustible dust regulation in the United States.

Brian has over 20 years of experience in industries handling combustible dust. He’s also been involved in technical committees for NFPA 61 and NFPA664. Although we have covered a lot of ground regarding explosion protection in the U.S., we haven’t yet touched on the regulatory landscape, and Brian can provide a solid history of the process and significant programs such as the OSHA National Emphasis Program on Combustible Dust.

In this episode, we will discuss the following:

The origin of the National Emphasis Program (NEP)
The programs that were in place before the NEP
The OSHA rulemaking process
The challenges of establishing a national standard
How OSHA is currently regulating combustible dust standards

What Programs Were In Place Before the NEP?

Before 2017, there weren’t many regulations or standards that dealt with combustible dust. There were a few industry-specific standards, such as rules applying to grain-handling facilities, bakeries, sawmills, and coal-fired power plants.

Outside of these specific facilities, there were only three standards that referenced dust explosion hazards, albeit in an antiquated way. OSHA has a ventilation standard that quotes the 1954 edition of NFPA 68. It also references the 1961 version of NFPA 91, which deals with conveying and dust collection and pneumatic systems.

OSHA has electrical standards that reference combustible dust, using a definition that’s similar to NFPA 70. It doesn’t, however, get into the specifics of design. Another standard that uses the word combustible dust is for powered industrial trucks: it talks about selecting the appropriate powered truck or forklift in hazardous locations where there could be an ignitable dust cloud.

What is the OSHA Rulemaking Process?

OSHA has a rulemaking process that starts with a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act review, so that it doesn’t approve a rule that could hurt small businesses. If it references a consensus standard that could potentially change, it will usually put a date on it because its rule-processing mechanism doesn’t allow it to have an open-ended standard that is outside of its control.

An Overview of the National Emphasis Program (NEP)

In 2006, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board released a combustible dust hazard study that called for some general industry standards around combustible dust. A year later, in 2007, OSHA issued the first combustible dust National Emphasis Program. It was revised in 2008 after the Imperial Sugar Refinery incident.

These versions of the NEP were basically guides for OSHA compliance, safety and health officials. They learned how to recognize hazards so they could issue citations to employers who did not address these dangers or left their employees exposed to combustible dust hazards. The NEP at this time was essentially a mechanism for creating random inspections based on the national industry code.

In 2008, there was more emphasis on outreach. OSHA issued a poster that explained the hazards of combustible dust and distributed flyers that identified the various types of dust and the industries they affected. It also offered free industry training.

In 2009, OSHA put out advance notification of proposed rulemaking for combustible dust hazards. In addition, it published an NEP status report that detailed the results of inspections. Brian said he found it interesting that 25% of the inspections carried out in the first year were for the wood products industry, followed by food manufacturers and metal production facilities. These three sectors accounted for over one half of all the inspections conducted under the NEP.

In October 2009, OSHA issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking or ANPR. The announcement was followed by several stakeholder meetings, one of which Brian attended in Atlanta. Two years later, in 2011, an expert forum was convened to discuss the topic.

Brian recalled that the rule got as far as an economic analysis. In 2012, OSHA started contacting experts to estimate the potential cost for a facility to upgrade its equipment to be in compliance with the current NFPA standards. The research group concluded that retrofits could be cost-prohibitive, especially after the recession set in.

The endeavor was put on hold. Although there was talk of creating a general industry standard, nothing was done and the topic was removed from the regulatory agenda in 2018.

The Difficulties With a General Standard

During the interview, Dr. Cloney referenced the OSHA grain handling standard. It was passed because there was a collaborative effort between OSHA, the large industry associations that are responsible for that industry sector and the experts in the field. Working together, they put something through. There was a similar success in Canada when WorkSafe B.C. sat down with experts and industry associations like the Wood Pellet Association of Canada.

Brian said that establishing a general standard will be difficult because different industries have different levels of risk.

“If you’re at a bakery with flour dust, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as aluminum or magnesium dust in a metal operation,” he explained. “So I think you get to a problem where people say, well, OK, let’s have a baseline for what would be included (but) there’s always someone saying that you shouldn’t exclude anyone because you can still get hurt, even if it’s a small industry.”

He added, “Once you start bringing in everyone, you get a lot of different opinions. You get different industry groups that aren’t going to have the same idea of how they want to be regulated. We’re even seeing that with the NFPA as they try to correlate the various NFPA standards.”

Individual industry groups want autonomy. For example, grain handlers don’t want grain dust to be lumped in with metal dust or pharmaceutical chemical dust. It is therefore harder to reach a consensus when so many diverse opinions exist.

“I think it’s hard,” Dr. Cloney agreed. “If you want to try to please everyone, then you probably end up not really helping anyone.”

How Is OSHA Currently Regulating Combustible Dust Hazards?

OSHA’s regulation of combustible dust hazards is essentially the same as the initial NEP. Inspectors are issuing citations based on existing standards like housekeeping. They also look at the amount of fugitive dust in the work environment to determine if there is enough dust to present a flash fire or explosion hazard to the employees.

OSHA also issues citations under the electrical standard if a facility does not have dust explosion-proof equipment in areas that would be considered a hazardous location. Other standards include:

The general duty clause, which is a broad standard stating that the employer is responsible for providing a workplace that’s free of recognized hazards.
Hazard communication, which requires a safety data sheet identifying combustible material and/or education of employees about these hazards.

Brian noted that he has observed inconsistencies in the way that OSHA issues citations. “We’ve seen citations issued for a small pile of wood dust behind a radial arm saw in a garage door shop, which is not even a large manufacturing facility. Other times, we’ve seen inspectors come through and give a clean bill of health to a facility where there might be explosion hazards.”

He explained that most OSHA inspectors are not combustible dust experts. The organization has some experts, especially in their Salt Lake City testing center, and there are some inspectors who are very well-versed in combustible dust, but this isn’t a general rule.

The only thing I can say is that it’s inconsistent in how it is rolled out, especially in the different areas of the country and with different regional offices. And then when you consider that there are several states that administer their own OSHA program and aren’t covered under the federal program. It makes it hard to consistently say this is exactly how OSHA handles it in every situation.”

Conclusion

Brian commented that there should be minimum standards, but he isn’t sure how to get OSHA back on board. “I hope that maybe things change and that there’s a push again. And I just really hope that it doesn’t take another catastrophe to to restart this whole process.”

If you would like to discuss further, leave your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also reach Brian Edwards directly:
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-edwards-pe-185a21b/

If you have questions about the contents of this or any other podcast episode, you can go to our ‘Questions from the Community’ page and submit a text message or video recording. We will then bring someone on to answer these questions in a future episode