News

Filter By
Archive: 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020

Results for "Health & Safety"

It’s Official: There Are New RMP Rules

PSM/RMP for the Uninitiated: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforce similar requirements for facilities that have more than the threshold quantity of listed highly…

Bill Beadie, CIH Health & Safety, Regulatory Compliance
Updated PSM and RMP Rules Are Coming Soon. Maybe.

  PSM/RMP for the Uninitiated: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforce similar requirements for facilities that have more than the threshold quantity of listed highly…

Bill Beadie, CIH Air Quality, Food Processing, Health & Safety, Regulatory Compliance
New OSHA Rules to Protect Workers from Infectious Disease

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Oregon OSHA (OR-OSHA) is preparing rules to protect workers from infectious diseases. The rulemaking process has been dynamic, to say the least, which should not be surprising given the nature of the…

Bill Beadie, CIH Health & Safety
COVID-19: Don’t Miss the Forest for the Trees

The impact of COVID-19 is so widespread that planning to operate or re-open a business today can be overwhelming. The complex scientific, economic, political, legal, and cultural issues present a daunting challenge to anyone tasked with…

Bill Beadie, CIH Health & Safety
Environmental Compliance During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Over the last few weeks, Oregon and Washington industries have had to implement significant changes to their operations to protect their employees and the public, and comply with shelter-in-place orders and social distancing guidelines related…

Ada H. Banasik, PE Environmental, Food Processing, Forest Products, Health & Safety, Stormwater
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak: Practical Protections for the Workplace and Community

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is no joke. The swift spread of this virus and the surrounding news updates have many—if not all—of our Pacific Northwest-based staff thinking about how to stay safe while best practices for addressing the virus are…

Bill Beadie, CIH Communications and Outreach, Health & Safety, MFA Staff and Culture
New Compliance Considerations for Ammonia Refrigeration Facilities

Occasionally, I look around and realize that things have changed. It’s usually a small thing here and little thing there, and then I realize that the world has evolved into a different place. Recently, I realized that the world of ammonia…

Bill Beadie, CIH Food Processing, Health & Safety
Fieldwork Season in Full Swing at the Bunker Hill Superfund Site

For many of MFA’s geologists, environmental scientists, and chemists, summer means long days of fieldwork at the Bunker Hill Superfund Site (BHSS), conducting several different concurrent environmental investigations. The BHSS includes areas…

Alan R. Hughes, RG, LG, PG Environmental, GIS & Data Management, Health & Safety, Sediment
Top Industrial Compliance Tips for Summer

Compliance at industrial facilities is important 365 days a year, and each season comes with its own compliance challenges. As we head into the summer season, here are our top tips to ensure your facility remains compliant. Stormwater…

Carly Schaefer Air Quality, Health & Safety, Stormwater
Separating the Science from the Rumors about PFAS

You may have heard of “PFAS” in a documentary or in the news recently. You also may have heard that, in the U.S., PFAS chemicals are in drinking water and in people’s blood. And you would be right to say—what!? How can this be? This…

Courtney Savoie, RG, LHG, PG Attorneys, Environmental, Health & Safety, Local and State Agencies, Planning & Community Development, Ports, Sediment, Stormwater
The Dizzying Story of the Updated RMP Rule: Spoiler Alert—Compliance Date for Most of the Changes is March 15, 2021

PSM/RMP for the Uninitiated: The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) both enforce similar requirements for facilities that have more than the threshold quantity of listed…

Bill Beadie, CIH Food Processing, Health & Safety
From Writing Textbooks to Solving Complex Problems: MFA Toxicologist Amplifies Research Training

In our daily lives we are constantly exposed to ever-changing mixtures of chemicals, and existing tools for figuring out how these chemical mixtures affect our health are not necessarily comprehensive. This is largely because they do not…

Phil Wiescher, PhD Air Quality, Health & Safety, Sediment, Stormwater
Process Safety Management: Can We Please Stop Saying, “If You Didn’t Document It, It Didn’t Happen”?

Ask ten people about process safety management (PSM), and chances are at least seven of them will tell you about mountains of paperwork designed primarily to keep auditors happy. They might say, “I spend so much time doing paperwork that I…

Bill Beadie, CIH Food Processing, Health & Safety
EPA Responds to my Last Blog Post and Finalizes RMP Rule

Clearly EPA is reading my blog, because only nine days after I posted a summary of lingering questions about proposed PSM/RMP changes (link), EPA has responded with a final version of the updated rule (link) and a summary of frequently asked…

Bill Beadie, CIH Health & Safety
PSM/RMP Update: Major Events, Rule Changes, and Donald Trump

PSM/RMP for the uninitiated: The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) both enforce similar requirements for facilities that have more than the threshold quantity of…

Bill Beadie, CIH Health & Safety
Lead in drinking water

James Peale, RG, LHG, Principal Hydrogeologist at MFA, authored the recent article, Lead in Drinking Water: Steps to take as a Business Owner, published in the Vancouver Business Journal July 8, 2016. Click the link below to read his full…

Alistaire Clary, PE Environmental, Health & Safety
Demolition Brings New Chapter for Josephine County’s Dimmick Tower

It was a hot August day when I first saw the building—fenced off and surrounded by brown, crunchy grass, it was a five-story building with boarded-up windows and broken glass. When I finally got to enter the building, I suited up in Tyvek™…

Carly Schaefer Environmental, Health & Safety, Local and State Agencies
MFA’s Approach to Mechanical Integrity Used by EPA as Example of Best Practice

The current issue of EPA’s Chemical Emergency Prevention and Planning newsletter features Bill Beadie’s article on mechanical integrity programs in the section titled “Best Practices from the Field.”  The article describes a…

Bill Beadie, CIH Health & Safety, Press Releases