California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted December 19 to make the state’s emergency respirable crystalline silica (RCS) standard permanent. The rule aims to protect workers, especially those who work with artificial, man-made stone, from silica exposures.
According to the standards board, the RCS standard strengthens the emergency temporary standard (ETS) that went into effect on December 29, 2023. The standard’s protections include enhanced safety measures, improved worker monitoring, a stronger reporting process, and other provisions.
Work practices required by the ETS include using wet methods to control dust, properly handling all waste materials, employing safe cleanup housekeeping methods, and air monitoring to confirm RCS levels are below the rule’s action level. Other requirements include respiratory protection, training, and information.
More than 230 California workers have developed silicosis since 2019, according to the board. Silicosis is an incurable, progressive disease that can cause serious and fatal health effects. Fourteen workers have died from the disease, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has conducted 85 inspections related to silica exposure over the past 12 months. Twenty-six percent of the shops inspected received Orders Prohibiting Use (OPUs), which temporarily shut down equipment or processes that pose immediate safety risks until exposure issues are fixed. Citations were issued in approximately 95% of the closed inspections, with 53 out of 56 resulting in violations.
This past fall, Cal/OSHA cited nine employers in Sun Valley within the greater Los Angeles area with silica and other violations. Cal/OSHA’s Van Nuys District Office conducted the inspections. It determined that all nine employers violated multiple safety and health regulations, including failure to use methods to effectively suppress dust and failure to provide employees with full-face, tight-fitting powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs).
The standards board also voted to create an advisory committee to explore additional measures to protect workers from the harms of silica dust.
Text of the new permanent standard goes to the state’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL), which has 30 working days to review and approve or deny the proposal.
The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, which adopts reasonable and enforceable standards that are at least as effective as federal workplace safety and health standards, is a seven-member body appointed by the governor. The Division of Occupational Safety and Health oversees California's outreach, inspection, and enforcement.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has an enforcement and compliance assistance initiative, launched in 2023, aimed at silica exposures in the engineered stone fabrication and installation industries.
The agency’s 2023 enforcement and outreach effort supplements OSHA’s RCS National Emphasis Program (NEP), revised in 2020. OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have identified silica dust exposure as a health hazard for workers in the manufacturing, finishing, and installing of natural and manufactured stone, including man-made, “engineered” artificial or cultured-type products.
This fall, federal OSHA learned an employee of a Chicago countertop manufacturer needed a double lung transplant after suffering accelerated silicosis. The agency cited the employer with 8 egregious willful, 4 willful, and 20 serious safety and health violations, proposing penalties of over $1 million.