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Chemical Exposures, Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Worker's Safety and Health, and OSHA Monitoring

Chemical Exposures, Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Worker's Safety and Health, and OSHA Monitoring
The potential accidents and other safety concerns for workers working in hazardous environments are immense. Today, with the recent BP oil spill disaster, the workers who are involved in the oil spill clean up operations, inhale chemicals that cause many severe health problems. In an effort to reduce the number of serious injuries, OSHA has been monitoring, assessing and characterizing all the issues related to chemical exposures regarding oil spill areas.

In the clean up operations going on in the oil spill affected areas, workers on ships are exposed to fresh oil as well as weathered oil (where the toxic volatile substances have evaporated), which can cause serious permanent health injuries.

A team of industrial hygienists have been brought by OSHA to conduct its own independent air monitoring, both on shore and on the cleanup vessels after reviewing the data of BP monitoring. OSHA has taken the decision to provide the workers with necessary protection from air contaminants. OSHA has taken steps to analyze the oil by-products, "soup" of crude oil, dispersant, and any other material to know what kind of hazards may occur when workers respond to and cleanup the oil spill.

OSHA wants to ensure that workers are protected from these exposures and so is monitoring all the chemical exposures, such as exposures from chemical solvents used to clean boats.

After examining these various factors, the data that is collected by all the agencies including OSHA and BP, will then be tested. OSHA has come to the conclusion that there is no exposure to toxic chemicals and so there is no necessity to provide respirators to the cleanup workers.

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