Board of directors adopted new threshold limit values for some substances
WorkSafeBC’s board of directors has decided to adopt some of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists’ recommended threshold limit values (TLVs) effective June 1.
The board adopted new occupational exposure limits (OELs) for cotton dust, methyl isobutyl ketone and thallium and soluble compounds as TI.
The board decided to maintain the OELs for nine other substances including dieldrin, thionyl chloride and hydrogen sulfide.
The board listed the following reasons for keeping OELs on the nine substances:
· There are no validated sampling methods for citral, dieldrin, thionyl chloride, and cresol, all isomers. There will be on-going monitoring of the availability of a validated sampling method for each of these substances.
· Hydrogen sulfide, alpha-Methyl styrene and Portland cement were identified as having both sampling and practicability of implementation concerns. Follow up activities are planned to resolve the implementation issues.
· The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygiensts TLV for mineral oil excluding metal working fluids was not adopted because the current BC OELs for oil mist, mineral, mildly refined and oil mist, mineral, severely refined are more protective, and include metal working fluids.
