Future Environment Designs Training Center specializes in asbestos, indoor air quality, industrial hygiene, and occupational safety training programs. We offer New York State asbestos and mold certification courses. We design, develop, and maintain the various indoor air quality, asbestos, and safety programs that are Keeping Your Employees Safe.
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Showing posts with label New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Show all posts
We recently received an advisory memorandum from Mr. Steven A. Camaiore, P.E., the Director of the Asbestos Control Program for New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP). The Advisory had several important points and interesting bits of information. For example did you know NYCDEP was issuing violations directly to asbestos handlers for obvious violations in which the handler was directly at fault? Some of the violations they have issued are:
worker not wearing gloves,
worker engaged in dry removal,
worker not taking a shower,
or a worker altering their certificate.
This seems to have opened a new area of revenue for NYCDEP. Though I don't know how much money they are likely to get from asbestos handlers.
Asbestos Supervisors are already getting violations for dry removal or 5 or more violations on the site.
Another enforcement action NYCDEP announced was giving applicants until March 15, 2012 to close out projects filed in the January and February of 2011. Applicants are required to close-out their project(s), NYCDEP, with this memo, is notifying applicants that if their project is still open after March 15 they will take enforcement action. In addition, NYCDEP will begin strictly enforcing the following sub-sections of the asbestos regulations:
1-26 (e) Failure to terminate asbestos abatement permit within year
1-44(d) Analysis and Reporting Results
1-112 (m) Additional Clean-up Procedures (Final)
1-28 (h) Clean-up Procedures: Preparation for Clearance Air Monitoring
1. The registered design professional needs to create an account by going tohttp://a826-web01.nyc.gov/atr1and registering.
2. Once the registered design professional registers at the web site, they will give the email they used to register to the ACP7 applicant.
3. When closing out permitted locations the ACP7, the applicant will select the abatement locations and enter the email address the registered design professional used to register at the web site. 4. The applicant hits submit and the A-TR1 goes to the registered design professional who will complete and submit the A-TRI form to DEP for approval. Instructions for both the applicant and registered design professional can be found at our website at http://futureenvironmentdesigns.com/news.html.
We recently received an email from Steven A. Camaiore, P.E., the Deputy Director of the New York City Environmental Protection - Environmental Compliance Asbestos Control Program. In the email he advised that Title 15, Chapter 1 RCNY Asbestos Control Program Rules & Regulations were revised and the new Rules took effect February 3, 2011. Find the revised rule at: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/asbestos/asbestos.shtml.
In addition, he also advised that the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP) will be strictly enforcing the following provisions of Title 15, Chapter 1 RCNY Asbestos Control Program Rules & Regulations effective May 1, 2011:
“§ 1-01 (j) (3) DEP may deny any application for an asbestos abatement permit pursuant to section 1-26 of these rules, or a variance application pursuant to section 1-03 of these rules, where any party to the asbestos project, including but not limited to the abatement contractor, building owner, and air monitoring company, has docketed, unpaid civil penalties imposed by the Environmental Control Board for violations of these rules, sections 24-146.1 and 24-146.3 of the Administrative Code, or NYSDOL ICR 56.”
Companies with outstanding penalties can pay their outstanding penalties in any of the following ways:
• On-line at http://nycserv.nyc.gov/NYCServWeb/NYCSERVMain
New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP) is requesting comments regarding the amendments to Title 15 (the asbestos regulations). These comments are due before December 6, 2010. The link on the title will provide you the location of the amendments and to make comments on the amendments. A public hearing will be held on December 6, 2010 at the NYCDEP, 59-17 Junction Boulevard, 6th Floor, Flushing, NY 11373, from 10:00 A.M. to 12 Noon. Persons who have questions about the hearing should contact Belinda Pantina at (718) 595-6555. Primary changes are made to the definition to clarify materials, the section on Alterations/Renovations/Modifications to include asbestos exemptions, the section on Asbestos Abatement Permits to detail what is included in a work place safety plan, section on Abatement from Vertical Exterior Surfaces was modified to provide guidance when abatement should not be performed, and to correct typographical errors and other small corrections. An example of the changes includes the following:
Asbestos Assessment Report. If the building (or portions thereof) affected by the work are free of asbestos-containing material or the amount of ACM to be abated constitutes a minor project, an asbestos assessment report (Form ACP-5) completed, signed, and sealed by a DEP-certified asbestos investigator, along with a fee of $[25]47.00 shall be submitted to [DOB] DEP prior to construction document approval and to any amendment of the construction document approval which increases the scope of the project to include (a) work area(s) not previously covered.
Note that the fee is now $47 for the asbestos assessment report and the form must be submitted to the DEP not the Building Department. This is an example of the changes in the document those things underline are new and those bracketted are deleted. Remember afte rreading it if you want to make comments you have till December 6, 2010 to make those comments.
On November 19, 2009, the Metropolitan New York Chapter of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) sponsored the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) – Global and Local Updates: Asbestos, Fire/Life Safety and EHS program at the Pfizer Conference Center. For the list of speakers and their biographies click on the title above. The program was excellent and each of the speakers provided a lot of valuable information. Because of the recent activity by regulatory agencies regarding asbestos, the three speakers speaking on asbestos drew a large crowd. The speakers were:
Mr. Chris Alonge speaking on the proposed revisions to the New York State Department of Labor Industrial Code Rule 56 (NYS DOL ICR56);
Mr. Kevin Malone speaking on the New York State Department of Health’s asbestos training program and their program on performing audits/inspections of schools regarding their compliance with the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA).
Mr. Lutchmedial, the Director of Enforcement for NYC DEP, discussed the new asbestos regulations, filing requirements, and the new regulation’s relationship with what occurred at the Deutsche Bank Fire. The key points of his presentation were:
The new regulations are aligned with the fire code and specific fire safety requirements;
There is no grandfathering of the regulation. If you had a project that started before the regulations took effect (November 13, 2009), you must bring your project into compliance with the new regulation;
Preparation of the work area must be in the order the regulations are written (i.e., occupant notification, posting of floor plan with location of all fire exists, vacate area, shutdown electric, worker decontamination enclosure, erection of barriers);
Added a section defining unprofessional conduct;
No longer need a variance for floor tile removals;
All variances must be designed by a NYS certified Asbestos Project Designer.
Mr. Alonge’s, the DOSH Associate Safety and Health Engineer NYS DOL and author of the current ICR56, presentation was similar to the PACNY presentation (visit http://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/safetyhealth/DOSH_CODE_RULE_56_TRANSITION.shtm if you want to see the presentation and see my blog post on that presentation at http://futureenv.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html ). In our refresher classes we’ve been discussing Mr. Alonge’s presentation since he was kind enough to provide us with a copy of the presentation. The big difference with this presentation is he provided a rough timeline for when the new regulations may come out and eventually go into effect. The key points of Mr. Alonge’s presentation were:
The new regulation will have several references to the current NYS fire and building code. Mr. Alonge views many of changes to ICR56 as already being required by the fire and building code, with a few exceptions (i.e., negative air unit disconnect switch);
An audience question brought on a discussion regarding the use of dust samples in determining the extent of incidental disturbance. Mr. Alonge’s view was that Asbestos Inspectors should rarely use dust sampling. When dust sampling is necessary then it should follow the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard method D5755 for sampling and the analysis must follow NYS DOH Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (ELAP) methodology (this methodology provides you with qualititative results of positive or negative for asbestos).
Expected dates: Draft is currently at Counsel. Once Counsel is completed, anticipate submittal to the Governor’s Office of Rules and Regulation (GORR) around Jan/Feb 2010. Publish for comments April 2010. Final version by July 2010.
Mr. Malone’s, Section Chief of the Asbestos Safety Training Program of NYS DOH, discussion was on the asbestos training program and the audit/inspection program of NYS schools determining compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) AHERA regulation. Key points of his discussion were:
NYS DOH issued 26,000 asbestos certificates in New York State through 72 training providers.
Mr. Malone’s discussion of NYS DOH’s audit/inspection program for EPA highlighted several areas where schools are not complying with the AHERA regulations. These are:
Recordkeeping
No warning labels
Short term worker notification
Custodial/Maintenance Staff Training
Not identifying all ACBM
Project Designer
Clearance Sampling
The last two are significant in that once Mr. Malone discussed what was required, most people in the audience realized in regards of the last two not a single school in NYS is probably doing them. Visit our discussion group at http://groups.google.com/group/fed-forum?hl=en for a copy of the spreadsheets that Mr. Malone provided the attendees on this topic.
AHERA requires project designs developed by a Certified Asbestos Project Designer for all projects greater than a small scale short duration or minor fiber release (less than or equal to 3 linear feet (LF) or 3 square feet (SF)). Meaning in a school, even a NYS minor asbestos project (less than or equal to 10 SF or 25 LF) would require an asbestos project design written by a certified asbestos project designer.
Clearance testing for projects greater than 3 LF to less than 260 LF or greater than 3 SF to less than 160 SF require 5 inside air , 5 outside air and 3 blank samples analyzed by phase contrast microscopy. As you can see from the spreadsheet, this is a NYS State Education Department requirement. AHERA on the other hand would require only 5 inside and 2 blanks samples analyzed by PCM.
In addition to the above speakers, Ms. Gee Kay, acting Director of the Manhattan area office, representing OSHA informed us that the Obama Administration increased OSHA’s budget by 10% increasing inspections to 6,000 and allowing OSHA to hire more Compliance Safety and Health Officers. There are currently 20 CSHO in Manhattan and 5 in Queens. She also informed us of OSHA’s increased activity in rule making including the hazard communication, combustible dust, and acetylene standards. Mr. Julian Bazel, Counsel and Mr. James Hansen, Director of Code Revision, of the NYC Fire Department discussed the new fire code in NYC. Ms. Nancy Orr, Director - Global Environment, Health and Safety for Becton Dickinson, spoke about developing a global health and safety process/netrics in a de-centralized multinational corporation. While our host Mr. Michael West from Pfizer spoke on climate change and occupational hygiene; the whole day was very informative and entertaining. The Metro Chapter did a great job putting this program together. The program was well worth the trip into Manhattan and meeting some old friends made it even better.
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