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As the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a final rule to further limit workers’ exposure to silica dust, various trade groups maintained that the tightened restrictions will prove nearly impossible for contractors to follow.

Beginning June 23, 2017, contractors will be required to limit their workers’ exposure to respirable silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air throughout the course of an eight-hour day.

OSHA officials estimate that each year the rule will save more than 600 lives and prevent more than 900 cases of silicosis. Additionally, the agency estimates that annually $7.7 billion will be saved on medical treatments and related expenses.

Mark Kemp, past president of the Wisconsin Masonry Alliance, said that measuring the quantities of silica that the new rule calls for will prove difficult and may simply be 鈥渦nachievable in our industry.鈥�

鈥淭here (are not) enough labs nationwide that can even test the silica content they’re looking at,鈥� he said. 鈥淗ow are you going to test something if you can’t monitor it?鈥�

Construction workers release crystalline silica dust when they cut, saw, grind or drill stone, rock, concrete, brick, block or mortar. Workers who are regularly exposed to the particles are at an increased risk of contracting lung cancer, silicosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney disease.

The new rule runs more than 1,700 pages. Among other things, it:

鈥� requires employers to use water or ventilation or other means of limiting exposure to crystalline silica, or to provide respirators when those controls can’t adequately limit exposure;

鈥� provides medical examinations to monitor highly exposed workers; and

鈥� requires employers to develop a written exposure-control plan.

George Gruetzmacher, an industrial-hygiene consultant at the Onsite Safety & Health Consultation in Wisconsin program housed at UW-Madison, praised the rule but said it still did not go far enough to protect workers.

To be set at a 鈥渉ealthy鈥� level, he argued, the rule should most likely conform to the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists’ recommendation of 25 micrograms per cubic meter. Because of the limitations of current technology, he said, the new requirements instead follow recommendations made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

鈥淥SHA is recognizing it is not technically feasible across the board to get it there (at that level),鈥� Gruetzmacher said.

In the construction industry, though, the new rule is generally perceived as going too far. In a letter sent to OSHA in October, the Construction Industry Safety Coalition, an organization representing various national trades groups, laid out a series of concerns with the then-proposed rule. The CISC, whose members include the Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Association of Home Builders, predicted the new standards will prove particularly burdensome in the construction industry, 鈥渨here working conditions are constantly shifting and multiple employers are working and performing operations at the same job site.鈥�

Safety and health officials, though, say the causes for concern are being exaggerated.

Gruetzmacher, who regularly measures crystalline silica levels on work sites as part of his duties, said it’s rare at most work sites for silica levels to go above the 50-micrograms-per-cubic-meter limit. The U.S. Department of Labor, for its part, says most contractors will also find that they won’t have to make regular measurements to stay in compliance.

David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for Occupational Safety and Health, said the new rule lays out specific procedures and practices that, if followed in the workplace, will replace the need to keep track of silica levels.

Workers who use hand-held grinders, for instance, can protect themselves to a certain extent simply by wearing respirators.

鈥淔or construction contractors, except for very few exceptions, they will not have to measure (silica levels) in the workplace,鈥� Michaels said.

Companies outside the construction industry will have different deadlines for complying with the new rules. Maritime operations, companies that perform hydraulic fracturing and other 鈥済eneral鈥� industries have at least until June 23, 2018, if not longer, according to OSHA’s website.

Kemp said contractors are already planning to use their one-year grace period to 鈥渓ook at our options鈥� to stop the rule. The new requirements could be challenged in court, he said.

Not every construction group was showing resistance, though. Among the many supporters in the industry is North America’s Building Trades Unions.

鈥淲e believe that the agency has been diligent in its efforts to hear and consider all stakeholder input, and done a great job in getting the rule out,鈥� organization officials said in a written statement. 鈥淲e look forward to reading it in detail.鈥�

NABTU is an association of 14 national and international unions in the building and construction industry that collectively represents more than 3 million skilled craft professionals in the U.S. and Canada.

(This story, written by Alex Zank, originally ran in聽The Daily Reporter, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based construction newspaper and a sister publication of the Daily Journal of Commerce.)