제  목 : Worker Protection Standards Become More Flexible
  일  자 : 1996년 10월
  제공처 : Safety ＆ Health

 The EnvironmentaI Protection Agency has issued two amendments
      to the Worker Protection Standard for agricultural pesticides.
      These amendments will make the standard more flexible for employers,
      while they continue to protect workers, and they will:

 l) Decrease the time during which decontamination supplies
      must be available to workers entering fields afrer low-toxicity
      pesticides have been used there.

 2) Allow employers to replace the required Spanish language on
      pesticide warning signs with the language most often used
      by theitr workers.

 Low-toxicity pesticides have restricted entry intervals offour
      hour or less. Decontamination supplies include soap, water
      and paper towels. Until now, the Worker Protection Standard
      required those supplies to be available for 30 days after
      a pesticide application, or for 30 days following the end of
      the restricted-entry interval, whichever  was longer. Under
      the decontamination amendment, decontamination supplies must be
      available for only seven days after employers have  applied
      low toxicity pesticides.

 The amendment will encourage the use of low-toxicity pesticides,
      according to the EPA. "If lower toxicity pesticides are used,
      employers wouldn't need to supply decontamination supplies
      for so long," says Don Eckerman in the EPA's Certification
      and Occupational Safety Branch.

 The use of low-toxicity pesticides could also reduce the amount
      of time employers spend keeping track of restricted entry intervals,
      and workers' entry times, according to Eckerman. All these measures
      would cut expenses for employers, he says.

 Bryan Little of the American Farm Bureau Federation,
      in Washington, D.C., thinks the amendment will not have
      a great impact on employers. Farmers don't use many low-toxicity
      pesticides, he says, and the decontamination period is not
      a factor in their decisions.

 "These low-toxicity chemicals are not widely used," he says.
      "Many farmers don't use them because some higher toxicity chemicals
      are more effective and cost-efficient. I don't believe this
      amendment will be an incentive to change."

 Although the sign amendment allows employers to post warning
      signs in languages other than Spanish, it requires the English
      portion of the signs to remain. It also requires employers
      to post warning signs that are visible from all the usual points of
      worker entry into  a pesticide-treated area.

 As part of the second amendment, the EPA is permrtting the use
      of smaller pesticide warning signs in  nurseries and greenhouses.
      Employers can use signs of approximately 4 1/2 by 5 inches
      if the distance between signs is 25 feet or less. They can use
      signs of approximately 7 by 8 inches if the distance between
      signs is 50 feet or less.

 Little of the American Farm Bureau Federation calls the sign
      amendment a major step forward. "The change in language for signs
      is clearly an improvement for someone farming in areas where
      non-Spanish-speaking workers are used, "he says. "For example,
      in Hawaii, most workers are Laotian," and cannot read signs
      written in Spanish.

 The amendment allowing smaller signs in nurseries and
      green-houses is just as significant a change according to Little.
      "The use of smaller signs will make it easier for  employers
      to comply," he says.

 For more information, contact the EPA's Certification and
      Occupational Safety Branch at (703) 305-7665.