East Coast Lags West in Protecting Workers Toiling in Smoke

Workers on the East Coast laboring outdoors in the thick wildfire smoke that’s drifted down from Canada don’t have the same protections as their West Coast counterparts.

While California and Oregon enacted workplace health rules covering wildfire smoke and Washington state’s rule is coming, federal OSHA and Eastern state workplace agencies haven’t adopted similar regulations. If the state rules had been in effect for the Eastern Seaboard this week, employers could have been forced to provide free N95 respirators to their outdoor workers and take other precautions.

“The West Coast is further along on this path,” said Joan Casey, an assistant professor at the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences in Seattle.

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The trigger point for the states mandating active precautions, such as issuing workers N95 respirators, is an EPA air quality level of 151 or higher—the threshold for unhealthy smoke levels. Air quality is determined by measuring the amount of airborne particles 2.5 micrograms and smaller per cubic meter.

As of 10 a.m. Thursday, the air quality levels for Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia were about 250, while New York City’s score was about 175. The worst air quality was in central Pennsylvania where Harrisburg’s level reached 387.

John Ho, co-chair of Cozen O’Connor’s OSHA-Workplace Safety Practice in New York City, said the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration could invoke a law—the general duty clause—to cite employers.

But because of the difficulty of showing that working outdoors over the course of the next few days would lead to an illness, Ho said he doubted the agency would use the law.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says health effects known or suspected to be caused or exacerbated by wildfire smoke include lung ailments such asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; eye and throat irritations; heart problems; and adverse birth outcomes.

Healthy Advice

Absent regulations, employers with outdoor workers should follow recommendations from health departments, worker advocates said.

“Local public health officials have the best information on concentrations of ground level particulates and ozone, and their advice should be followed,” said Chris Trahan Cain, director of the union-affiliated CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training in Silver Spring, Md.

The New York Department of Public Health recommended all people limit their time outdoors, keep windows closed, and avoid strenuous activities. For those who must go outdoors, the state is distributing for free 1 million N95 or similar respirators.

Health experts generally advise against depending on cloth coverings, paper masks, or other loose fitting face coverings because they don’t adequately filter the air.

Western Rules

State workplace safety agencies on the West Coast began looking at enacting wildfire smoke exposure rules starting in 2018 after dry springs and summers led to numerous fires.

While details of the rules differ, in general they require employers of outdoor workers or those in buildings without air filtering systems to take precautions based on air quality data, including numbers from the US Environmental Protection Agency.

On the East Coast where prolonged droughts haven’t been a problem, there haven’t been widespread wildfires, so smoke exposure hasn’t been a common worker health issue. None of the 27 regulations OSHA is actively working on cover wildfire smoke.