THE COHEN GROUP
  Environmental Health & Safety Consulting Services

The Cohen Group Newsletter - Volume 6  Issue 3, Article 4.  August, 2004

Joy E. Fleming, MPH

When federal OSHA issued its Hearing Conservation Program in 1983 for noise-exposed workers in general industry, agriculture and the construction industries were exempted from the requirements. In August 2002, Federal/OSHA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to address noise-induced hearing loss among workers in the construction industry. After review of comments received in response to the ANPR, OSHA held two stakeholder meetings; one in March and another in July of 2004.

At the first meeting, stakeholders discussed an approach to implementing hearing conservation programs based on the knowledge of exposure levels in common construction tasks. They determined that such an approach would simplify implementing hearing conservation programs into practice. The stakeholders sought a simple and flexible system that would require minimal exposure monitoring and expertise by construction workers.

At the second meeting, the stakeholders discussed a task-based approach to implementing hearing conservation programs and addressed the common tasks in construction where significant noise exposures occur. The stakeholders determined which critical data elements (i.e., anticipated exposures, duration, noise perimeter zones, and use of hearing protection) were needed to sufficiently characterize typical tasks in construction.

OSHA revealed that studies showed as many as 750,000 construction workers were currently exposed to noise levels of 85 dBA or greater at work and the largest number or worker exposures to excessive noise occurs during road construction, carpentry, and concrete work. There is no published timetable for release of a draft Hearing Conservation Standard in Construction. Because of the significant impact that this standard could have on the construction industry, we will follow the standard-setting process closely.