The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration will not decrease the permissible exposure limit of wood dust to 1 milligram per cubic meter after receiving opposition from a wood products industry coalition, according to the American Wood Council.
The regulation change, proposed last summer, would have decreased the eight-hour time-weight average permissible exposure limit (PEL) from 5 milligrams per cubic meter of air to 1 milligram per cubic meter of air for softwood and hardwood dust, except Western red cedar, but the agency’s Standards Board voted against adopting the regulation.
“Cal/OSHA staff had not generated sufficient information to claim the 1 milligram per cubic meter level was feasible to achieve,” said AWC Chief Scientist Stewart Holm in a statement. “A PEL of anything less than 2 would force many workers to wear respirators, contrary to the hierarchy of controls.”
Cal/OSHA will now restart the rulemaking for wood dust, AWC said.
