FE Volume 137 Issue 5

The first comprehensive report on state and federal requirements for informing employees and communities about the hazards of toxic chemicals is now available from the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (BNA), a Washington-based publisher of specialized information services. The BNA report assesses the requirements and effect of "right-to-know" laws in Alaska, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

In previous columns, I have discussed the movement of hazardous materials by four of the five major modes of transportation and the planning necessary for handling incidents created when hazardous materials move by pipeline, rail, road, and water. The last mode of transportation that emergency response personnel need to prepare for involves airways.

Mr. Luigi U. DeBernardo was posthumously honored by R. Max Peterson, Chief of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture at the 74th annual Western Forestry and Conservation Association meeting. He was honored for his years of work as the nation's leading authority on spark arresters. Spark arresters, by preventing hot carbon from escaping from an engine's exhaust, have reduced the number of forest, brush and grass fires that occur each year.

A small, rural, volunteer fire department near St. Paul, MN, was issued a summons by the state inspectional arm of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This citation followed the death of Firefighter Thomas Hollingsworth of the Robbinsdale Volunteer Fire Department. Tom had been killed while using his self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) to "buddy-breathe" with a brother firefighter who had run out of air in a smoky basement fire.