Create Your Silica Plan Online

Develop your respirable silica written exposure control plan more easily online

Contractors have needed to conduct a job hazard analysis for silica and then create a plan to mitigate that hazard since June 23, 2018, when CFR 1926.1153 went into full effect. That’s the Construction Silica Standard from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which was first published on March 25, 2016.

A decade ago, AsphaltPro Magazine was sharing information and articles to assist contractors in navigating the standard, and you can find those around the website. The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) also assembled a webinar titled “Understanding & Implementing the New Construction Silica Standard,” which is still available on YouTube.

Now CPWR has revised its website for silica information, offering an updated “Work Safely with Silica” website and exposure control planning tool. While the entire site has a new look and corrected links, the section we’ll focus on is the tab for creating your own silica mitigation plan. During a Feb. 26 webinar, the team from CPWR shared aspects of the updated tool, and encouraged users to re-register at the site to begin creating their written exposure control plans again.

Five Tabs for Silica Info

First, the five main sections of the site are “Know the Hazard,” “Regulations & Requirements,” “Training & Other Resources,” “Frequently Asked Questions,” and “Control the Dust,” which is the tab where you create your plan.

The training and resources tab includes, but isn’t limited to, video and webinar links as well as two toolbox tips, two hazard alert cards, and other printable handouts. These assets are downloadable and shareable for free; they’ve been made available with tax dollars through NIOSH and are in the public domain.

How to Dispose of Silica Dust

Silica Exposure Plans Made Easy

The “Control the Dust” section of the site offers a button labeled “Create-A-Plan,” which takes you to a page to prepare a written exposure control plan for your individual project in three steps. In step one, the system offers you the option to register with the site.

Registering is confidential and optional, and gives you the ability to save your work. Basically, you’re able to save each plan you develop to retrieve and modify the plans at a later date. Registering does not save repetitive information for populating future plans that you work on. We’ll share more on that in step three below.

During the webinar, CPWR’s Chris Cain stated clearly, “There is a real firewall between us and users in there.” She, and others in the meeting, explained that the system prevents CPWR from seeing or accessing information that users input. If you decide not to register, you can still save a downloadable pdf of your plan—something you can print out. But you won’t be able to save the plan for future access and modification.

The site makes it easy to remember to include all the elements OSHA will be looking for in your written silica exposure control plan.

Step one also gives you multiple “tasks” and multiple materials to select from to begin building your written exposure control plan. If you’ll be cutting/sawing an existing asphalt pavement or transporting fractured sand, you’ll be able to select “asphalt” as your material and “cutting/sawing” or “frac sand transferring” as your task.

If your project is more complex than one task, you are able to choose multiple tasks and materials.

Broce Manufacturing Leads the Way in Silica Dust Control for Sweepers

These selections automatically populate in step two, where you’ll select the method(s) you wish to use to control silica dust. The system will offer you a list of approved exposure control measures that are available to you for your tasks and materials, as well as professionals available to assist you, and so on. The system doesn’t suggest specific make and model of products but does list commercially available tools and methods that have been OSHA-approved.

In step three, the selections and information will be in place for you. This is the screen where you’ll input additional plan information such as:

• the name of the competent person for silica on a construction project,
• your procedures to restrict access to the premises,
• description of the training offered to the personnel performing the work,
• housekeeping measures used to limit employee exposure to respirable crystalline silica,
• what medical surveillance will be provided, and
• other considerations.

Put Plans in Place to Protect Workers from Silica Dust at the Plant

These fields will not automatically populate, even if you’ve registered with the site, but the team shared during the February webinar that you can duplicate existing plans and use the same information again if you’ve registered and saved your previous plans. Given the amount of information to be included in a written exposure control plan, it would make the job easier to access previous elements for copying, pasting and simple editing.

For contractors who have been painstakingly preparing written exposure control plans, this site offers a way to streamline the process, making it nearly impossible to “forget” an element that OSHA will be looking for in the plan. The CPWR team shared that OSHA has a link to the tool on its site and has accepted plans from the former iteration of the site. To try it out for yourself, visit silica-safe.org.