Industrial Environmental Health and Safety

Operation of modern industrial facilities must be carried out with a focus on environmental health and employee safety. Business and industry are required to develop safety plans and containment procedures based on best practices described by organizations like the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Scope

• Maintaining a safe, productive and healthy environment requires more than just recycling and cutting back on driving. Industrial contaminants are a huge problem for human and ecosystem health, and managing their output into the environment is a real challenge.

Contamination

• There are thousands of different varieties of contaminants that could potentially disrupt health and safety. Some are intentionally released in limited quantities for control of a population such as pesticides and water purification chemicals, some may be released as byproducts like exhaust from cars. Some of the most notorious are those that are released accidentally through spills and leak. Even chemicals that may be safe in low dosages become catastrophic in large spill scenarios.

OSHA Standards

• OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has set up extensive regulations for safe operations. The specifics of OSHA regulations cover everything from personal employee safety to emergency planning and hazardous waste spill containment. OSHA also requires industries that use or traffic in hazardous substances to maintain documentation of all substances used, produced, or transported. Under the same regulations, employers are required to devise and update emergency response plans and train their employees under those plans.

EPA Regulations

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one government entity that enforces pollution laws, among other functions related to maintaining a robust environment. The Clean Air and Clean Water acts fall under the jurisdiction of the EPA, as do newer regulations like Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA for short, also referred to as the Superfund program.) Regulatory acts like these are aimed at preserving not only the environment, but also human health from industrial contamination and pollution.

Enforcement

• Writing comprehensive legislation aimed at keeping the water, air and soil clean is challenging, but enforcing those regulations is even more difficult. Although government authorities like the EPA do have legal authority to prosecute violators, civil enforcement and local law agencies make this much more feasible. If the operators of an industrial facility are endangering the health of employees and nearby residents, federal authorities get a great deal of help from police and emergency response crews to deal with arrests or initial containment. For some violations of industrial health and safety regulations, criminal charges can be leveled.