Development and Application of a Method for Toxicological Assessment of Occupational Exposures to Chemicals in Marine Operations. Addendum

摘要

The objective of this supplemental report was the development and application of a method for toxicological assissment of marine occupational exposures to chemicals. More than 200 exposure samples were evaluated for a wide range of marine work activities including tank loading and discharging, tank gauging, tank entry and cleaning, and various on-deck activities. A two-tiered approach, based on current American Conference of Govermental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) Threshold Limit Values, was adopted for toxicological assessment of occupational exposure data. One-half of the ACGIH TLV-TWA value of a chemical was designated as the level of exposure requiring medical monitoring and, possibly, some type of industrial hygiene corrective action. All exposures to workplace concentrations without regard to the exposure duration, equal to or exceeding this medical monitoring response level shoould require medical monitoring of exposed personnel. Exposures to concentrations greater than the TLV-Time Weighted Average (TWA) value should be considered potentially hazardous and should require implementation of industrial hygiene remedial action in addition to the medical monitoring of exposed workers. In the Tier I evaluations, the measured exposure data were screened in order to identify those exposures in which the concentration of chemical equalled or exceeded the medical monitoring response level of the chemical. In the Tier II evaluations, in-depth toxicological assessments were made of the measured exposure data to ascertain the nature and severity of toxic effects and the degree of hazard anticipated from the exposure.