Be Part of the Ultimate Safety & Compliance Community
Trending news, knowledge-building content, and more – all personalized to you!
Standard Number:1910.1018, 1910.1018(a), 1910.1200, 1926.1118, 1926.1126
May 3, 2023
Maria Gomez
56 County Center Road
White Plains, NY 10607
Dear Ms. Gomez:
Thank you for your letters of July 8, 2021, and August 31, 2021, in which you expressed your concerns about the exclusion of arsenic-treated wood from OSHA's Inorganic Arsenic standard, 29 CFR §1910.1018, and for the additional information you provided for OSHA's review in this matter in February and March 2023. Your letters discussed the brain and nerve damage suffered by your husband, who was diagnosed with arsenic poisoning in 2019, and you stated that he had worked with arsenic-treated wood during his occupation as a carpenter 15 years earlier. You voiced your concern that he and others who work with arsenic-treated wood are not adequately informed about the health effects of exposure to arsenic or the preventive measures they can take. You requested that OSHA rescind the exclusion of arsenic-treated wood from 29 CFR §1910.1018, so that employers of carpenters and others who work with it would be required to provide them with training and other protections of OSHA's Inorganic Arsenic standard. We appreciate and commend your interest in advocating for OSHA's standard to cover all workers potentially exposed to arsenic in their occupations.
Revision of 29 CFR §1910.1018 is not currently on the agency's regulatory agenda, available at https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/unifiedagenda/currentagenda. OSHA is working aggressively on a number of rulemaking initiatives that will have a significant impact on worker safety and health, including rulemakings to address heat injury and illness, workplace violence, and occupational exposure to COVID-19, among others. Given these important rulemaking priorities and OSHA's limited resources, OSHA does not plan to add this topic to the regulatory agenda at this time.
However, you may be interested to know that although the inorganic arsenic standard does not cover arsenic-treated wood, such wood is subject to OSHA's Hazard Communications standard (HCS), 29 CFR §1910.1200. Exposure to chromated copper arsenate (CCA)-treated wood dust is specifically recognized by OSHA as a hazard to the end user of wood under the HCS, as shown in excerpts from several letters of interpretation issued by OSHA in 1994. Employers of carpenters and others exposed to dust from working with arsenic-treated wood structures are required by the HCS to provide information and training to employees about the health effects of their exposures and about the preventive measures they can take. Furthermore, OSHA recognizes wood dust as a health hazard subject to the requirements of the HCS whether or not it is chemically treated, as shown in the excerpt provided from a letter of interpretation issued by OSHA in 1987. The HCS therefore requires employers to provide information and training to workers exposed to wood dust, whether or not the wood is chemically treated.
As you are aware, most residential use of arsenic-treated wood ended by 2004. Therefore, most exposures to arsenic-treated wood dust likely occur during work on existing residential structures or non-residential construction. The provisions of the HCS most relevant to exposed workers in these cases are its requirements for the employers of exposed workers (rather than the HCS requirements for manufacturers or importers of treated wood products), although manufacturers also have a responsibility to provide warning labels and safety data sheets (SDSs) to downstream users of arsenic-treated wood which may be used in building or modifying some commercial structures. The provisions we think may be of most interest to you, based on the concerns expressed in your letters, are as follows.
In addition, you may be interested to know that OSHA's 2006 rulemaking for hexavalent chromium or Cr(VI)-also a chemical used in certain wood preservatives- did not exclude wood treated with hexavalent chromium from the scope of the hexavalent chromium standard. OSHA's preamble to that final rule stated:
As you are aware, arsenic-treated wood was produced with a pesticide/preservative called chromated copper arsenate (CCA) to prevent rotting in lumber designed for outdoor use. Even though OSHA's arsenic standard does not apply to the use of CCA-treated wood, OSHA's hexavalent chromium standard for construction does apply to the use of CCA-treated wood. The hexavalent chromium standard contains a variety of protections, such as respiratory protection and PPE, which would apply to employees working with CCA-treated wood, depending on the amount of hexavalent chromium exposure involved. The full text of OSHA's hexavalent chromium standard for construction may be viewed online at https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1926/subpart-Z/section-1926.1126.
In summary, exposure to wood dust in general-including, but not limited to, arsenic-treated wood dust-is recognized by OSHA as a hazard to the end user of wood under the HCS. The requirements of the HCS therefore apply when workers are known to be exposed to wood dust, whether or not their employer has reason to expect that the wood dust comes from arsenic-treated wood. Furthermore, when workers are exposed to wood that is known to have been treated with arsenic, their employer must include health hazards specifically associated with arsenic-treated wood in the information and training provided to exposed workers. And, additional protections included in OSHA's hexavalent chromium standard are applicable to workers who are exposed to CCA-treated wood in some circumstances. Although OSHA does not plan to add your requested revision to the scope of the arsenic standard to the regulatory agenda at this time, we hope that the information included in this letter about the protections available to employees who are exposed to arsenic from their work with treated wood is helpful to you.
In closing, we are sorry to hear of your husband's situation, but we commend you for your dedication to worker safety.
Sincerely,
Andrew Levinson, MPH, Director
Directorate of Standards and Guidance
(1)
The following excerpts from several letters of interpretation
issued by OSHA in 1994 illustrate that exposure to CCA-treated wood
dust is specifically recognized by OSHA as a hazard to the end user
of wood under the HCS:
(2)