EPA Announces New Web Site Listing Regulations With Potential Impact on Agriculture 13 JUNE 2007
EPA today announced a new Web site containing an easy and succinct look-up tool listing federal environmental regulations that could potentially apply to agriculture.
OSHA implements National Emphasis Program to eliminate highly hazardous chemicals in the petrochemical industry 13 JUNE 2007
OSHA has published a directive implementing a National Emphasis Program to help eliminate workplace hazards associated with the release of highly hazardous chemicals at petroleum refineries.
National Safety Council Report: Accidental Deaths on the Rise 12 JUNE 2007
Accidentaldeaths in the United States are rising at an alarming rate, more than 20 percent over a 10-year period, according to the latest data available.
One issue important to the Agriculture Industry, a large sector including crop production, livestock production and agricultural chemicals, is worker safety. Keeping employees safe can be a difficult in an industry with safety risks such as pesticides and heavy machinery, among others.
"The Worker Protection Standard (WPS) is a regulation issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to protect agricultural workers from the effects of exposure to pesticides. It covers pesticides that are used in the production of agricultural plants on farms, forests, nurseries, and greenhouses. The WPS offers protections to over three and a half million people who work with pesticides at over 560,000 workplaces. The scope of the regulation includes not only workers performing hand labor operations in fields treated with pesticides, but also workers in forests, nurseries, and greenhouses, and the employees who handle (mix, load, apply, etc.) pesticides in these locations."
From October 2004 until September 2005, OSHA issued 53 citations to the agricultural industry and fines totaling $9,000. The average worker incidence rate was 6.4 per 100 full-time employees and the Agricultural Industry had 659 fatalities.
One important environmental topic is agricultural burning which can cause harmful air emission. It is vital to compliance that this happens at the correct location and follows all state (and any other relevant) guidelines.
As stated by the EPA:
"The degree to which ambient air emissions from farming practices -- such as prescribed burning -- are allowed are location-specific (specific to a geographic area) within each State Implementation Plan. Visibility standards may also apply through the State Implementation Plan. Locations that are in areas that have been classified as "nonattainment areas" under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards are subject to more restrictions."
Safety issues and environmental issues are often highly related. In the case of the Agricultural Industry, the proper maintenance of harmful pesticides not only keeps their workers safe, it can also prevent pollution, too. The release or transfer of harmful chemicals not only poses a threat to those handling them but also to the surrounding drinking water. The following shows just a few of these pollutants.
List of Agricultural Pollutants (as supplied by the EPA):
1. Nutrients
a. Phosphorous
b. Nitrogen
2. Sediment
3. Animal Wastes
4. Salts
5. Pesticides
These agricultural pollutants are abundant and often very detrimental to the environment. This is why a proactive system needs to be in place focusing on preventing pollution, not just the clean up of existing pollution problems.
Click here to learn about a few of the Federal Statutes and Regulations associated with the Agricultural Industry
Some questions to ask yourself:
What can our company do to stay competitive?
Are we losing too much time, money, and other resources dealing with non-compliance?
Are we using the most cost-effective methods to stay compliant?
If not, are we looking to alternatives to our existing compliance system?
Please feel free to browse our website or contact us to see if ehsSUITE is just what your Agricultural Corporation needs to stay competitive.
From English to Spanish, from Spanish to German, from German to Dutch and back to English...ehsSUITE speaks any language with a simple click of a mouse. The ehsSUITE platform is the only compliance management software with a built-in language translator.
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The event and task feature of ehsSUITE is a collaborative calendaring and scheduling application that synchronizes the agendas of your entire organization to provide users with flexible, more personalized means to instantly view, plan, manage, and coordinate their compliance schedules.
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The ehsSUITE provides a simple and intuitive place for building and maintaining compliance plans for Environmental, Health and Safety, and Plant Security.
The ehsSUITE provides a simple and intuitive place for building and maintaining compliance plans for Environmental, such as SPCC, SSM, SPCC, SWPPP; Health and Safety, such as Emergency Response, and Plant Security.
The event and task management capabilities of the calendar tool integrated throughout ehsSUITE provides the user with a range of options from the simplicity of simply managing calendar-based events to the functionality required to manage complex compliance projects.
The ehsSUITE calendar tool is a collaborative calendaring and scheduling application that synchronizes the agendas of your entire organization to provide users with flexible, more personalized means to instantly view, plan, manage, and coordinate their compliance schedules and tasks.
With ehsSUITE, web-based displays and dashboards have never been easier or more useful to build and maintain. The page editors provide the users of ehsSUITE a simple and intuitive toolbar to configure powerful data visualization and communication displays and dashboards.
The ehsSUITE provides a regulatory database that may be maintained by the user or may employ the optional BNA XML feed to keep regulations current. All regulations are configured to conform to the BNA standard that provides the user enough flexibility to manage regulations by citation.
The ehsSUITE manages safety equipment by providing the tools necessary for adding equipment, images associated with the equipment, procedures for proper use and deployment, and linking the equipment to an area or facility location.
The ehsSUITE incident management system is a powerful work-process system allowing the user to easily configure incident management systems to correspond to the legacy systems and procedures in place.
The ehsSUITE allows the centralization of MSDS documents to an easier to manage location. Display of the latest MSDS is easy and convenient through the ehsSUITE's web browser.
In addition to providing real-time data, configurable dashboards, reporting in Microsoft Office, and many other features that extend the business value of ehsSUITE software to our users, our Design and Development team has taken it one step further by adding a spreadsheet tool.
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