Page 14 - Occupational Health & Safety, April 2017

INDUSTRY UPDATE
es of technical expert opinion.
3. What improvements (if any) to
PPE-Info are needed to achieve the [Insti- tute of Medicine]’s vision of the “primary clearinghouse for reliable information on non-respirator PPT”? Please provide an explanation for why these improvements are needed, including the affected parties/ target audience and the potential impact to the PPE community if these improve- ments were made. Provide your rationale, any supporting data or information, in- cluding references or sources of technical expert opinion.
4. Identify any other issues that you feel
NIOSH should address in regards to this database.Pleaseprovideanexplanationfor why these improvements are needed, in- cluding the affected parties/target audience and the potential impact to the PPE com- munity if these improvements were made. Provide your rationale, any supporting data or information, including references or sources of technical expert opinion, or de- scribe your experiences as a database user.
New USGS Maps Show Human-Induced Earthquakes
New maps produced by the U.S. Geological Survey identify potential ground-shaking
hazards in 2017 from both human-induced andnaturalearthquakesinthecentraland eastern United States. This is the second consecutive year both types of hazards are forecasted; previous USGS maps identified hazards only from natural earthquakes.
The research was published March 1 in Seismological Research Letters and illus- trates the hazards central U.S. states face from human-induced earthquakes, accord- ing to the agency. About 3.5 million people live and work in areas of these states with significant potential for damaging shaking from induced seismicity in 2017, with most of those people living in Oklahoma and southern Kansas.
The total number of people at high risk from both natural and human-induced earthquakes this year is about 4 million. “The good news is that the overall seismic hazard for this year is lower than in the 2016 forecast, but despite this decrease, there is still a significant likelihood for damaging ground shaking in the [central states] in the year ahead,” said Mark Pe- tersen, chief of the USGS National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project.
The 2017 forecast decreased from last year’s because fewer felt earthquakes oc- curred in 2016 than in 2015, possibly be- cause of a decrease in wastewater injection resulting from regulatory actions and/or from a decrease in oil and gas production due to lower prices. Oklahoma experienced the largest earthquake ever recorded in the state in 2016 and also the greatest number of large earthquakes compared to any prior year. The chance of damage from induced earthquakes will continue to fluctuate de- pending on policy and industry decisions, Petersen said.
“The forecast for induced and natu- ral earthquakes in 2017 is hundreds of times higher than before induced seismic- ity rates rapidly increased around 2008,” he said. “Millions still face a significant chance of experiencing damaging earth- quakes, and this could increase or de- crease with industry practices, which are difficult to anticipate.”
NTSB Calls for Coast Guard Stan- dard on First Aid Kits’ Contents
A March 2017 report from the National Transportation Safety Board recommends that the U.S. Coast Guard develop a stan- dard for the contents of first aid and trauma kits for each type of response vessel it op-
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