Worker Health and Safety Hazards in Water Treatment Operations: Analysis of OSHA Inspection Data

BACKGROUND: Labor and industry stakeholders recently requested that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provide guidance for protecting water treatment workers, who, under circumstances like the recent Ebola outbreak, could be at elevated risk for exposure to infectious agents. Through that work, it became apparent that there was insufficient information about the types of health and safety hazards these workers face on the job, including due to improper or missing controls and other violations of OSHA requirements.

METHODS: OSHA analyzed data from 6,681 inspections conducted between 2005 and 2014 of facilities involved in water treatment operations, generally identified using common industrial classification codes for water supply and sewage treatment facilities. Descriptive statistics characterized worker health and safety hazards based on violations of applicable OSHA standards. Chi-square-type tests assessed association between a variety of factors, including geographic location of facilities, public/private ownership, and seriousness of violations. The study also looked specifically at violations related to worker protections against infectious agents, given the particular concern of OSHA’s stakeholders.

RESULTS: After excluding violations of standards specific only to a single state (i.e., OSHA state plan standards) and violations marked as deleted upon inspection closure, OSHA found 14,615 violations from 3,299 federal and state inspections of water treatment facilities or worksites. Though there were some violations of construction, recordkeeping, and other OSHA requirements, most violations (94.1%) were of general industry standards. Out of 13,758 general industry violations, 2,815 (20.5%) were of electrical standards, 1,527 (11.1%) were of the confined spaces standard, and 1,126 (8.2%) were of the hazard communications standard. There were also more than 1,000 violations of standards, including for bloodborne pathogens, respiratory protection, and personal protective equipment, that allow OSHA to protect workers from Ebola virus and other infectious disease hazards. There appears to be a significant relationship between public ownership of facilities and seriousness of violations (p=0.01).

CONCLUSIONS: OSHA data show potential worker health and safety hazards in water treatment operations, including in publically-owned facilities. Workers are not being properly informed about hazardous chemicals in the workplace nor are they being consistently protected from potential electrical, respiratory, and confined space hazards. However, violations of OSHA standards alone are not necessarily indicative of actual worker exposures to the hazards covered by those standards. Additional research describing real-life exposure scenarios for hazards in water treatment is needed in order to determine how and where interventions can be applied most effectively.