Bituminous Insurance Companies

MSHA – Asbestos Limits Changed

Nearly seven years after a Labor Department Inspector General's report urged the agency to toughen its asbestos standard, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) finalized its new asbestos rule.. The new MSHA asbestos limit, which is intended to protect the health of miners, covers exposure at metal and nonmetal mines, surface coal mines, and surface areas of underground coal mines.

This final rule reduces the permissible exposure limits for airborne asbestos fibers and makes clarifying changes to the existing standards. The previous MSHA's permissible exposure limit (PEL) allowed miners to be exposed to 20 times more asbestos than other workers covered by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) rules.

The final rule lowers MSHA's eight-hour, time-weighted average (TWA), full-shift PEL from 2 fibers per cubic centimeter of air (f/cc) to 0.1 f/cc. The existing excursion limit for metal and nonmetal mines is 10 fibers per milliliter (f/mL) for 15 minutes and the existing excursion limit for coal mines is 10 f/cc for a total of one hour in each eight-hour day. The final rule lowers these existing excursion limits to 1 f/cc for 30 minutes.

The MSHA and the OSHA rules, which now both limit exposure to 0.1 f/cc, becomes effective April 29, 2008.

To read the entire announcement, see the Federal Register notice at http://www.msha.gov/REGS/FEDREG/FINAL/2008finl/E8-3828.pdf

COPYRIGHT ©2008, ISO Services Properties, Inc.

The information contained in this publication was obtained from sources believed to be reliable. ISO Services Properties, Inc., its companies and employees make no guarantee of results and assume no liability in connection with either the information herein contained or the safety suggestions herein made. Moreover, it cannot be assumed that every acceptable safety procedure is contained herein or that abnormal or unusual circumstances may not warrant or require further or additional procedure.