Ditchmen • NUCA of Florida Ditchmen • July 2016 | Page 20

OSHA Amplifies Efforts to
Limit Construction Workers'
Noise Exposures
via Business Insurance
(06/15/16) Gonzalez, Gloria

The U.S. Occupational
Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) has
commenced the process
for creating a potential
Noise in Construction
standard. The potential
standard was included on
OSHA’s regulatory agenda,
published last month. The
agency plans to issue a
request for information in
November to discern the
effectiveness and feasibility
of such a standard. Ideally,
the new standard would
give construction workers
the protection from hearing
loss already available to
general industry workers
through the OSHA Hearing
Conservation Amendment,
which specifically excludes
the construction sector.
Currently, the agency
has set the permissible
exposure limit for
construction noise at 90
A-weighted decibels over

20

DITCHMEN • JULY 2016

an eight-hour period.
However, the National
Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health’s
suggested exposure level
is 85 A-weighted decibels
over the same period. “The
OSHA rule of 90 decibels is
very, very old, and it does
not protect the average
construction worker,” said
Richard Gleason, a senior
lecturer at the University of
Washington Department
of Environmental and
Occupational Health
Sciences’ School of Public
Health and Community
Medicine. Gleason
recommends that OSHA
lower the threshold to
mandate hearing protection
to 85 decibels, institute
baseline and annual

audiometric tests, and
require initial and annual
retraining of employees on
noise hazards and hearing
protections. Others say
OSHA also could base a
proposed standard on a
voluntary American National
Standards Institute standard
that links the exposure to
particular tasks instead of a
worker’s average exposure
over an eight-hour day.
• • •