This spoken segment explains why monitoring is required during HAZWOPER operations: to ensure worker safety and regulatory compliance by identifying and quantifying airborne hazards. It outlines when to conduct monitoring — initially upon entry to detect IDLH conditions, periodically when conditions change or new operations/contaminants are encountered, and repeatedly for high-risk employees during cleanup — and states that a monitoring policy must specify what is monitored, equipment used, and monitoring frequency.
Chapters
To make sure that everyone's safe on site and regulations are being followed. Monitoring's gotta be done. This is done anytime there's a question of employee exposure to hazards. To make sure that the correct engineering controls, work practices and personal protective equipment are being used. Air monitoring is done to identify and quantify airborne levels of hazardous substances. The first monitoring should be done upon initial entry to the site. This is going to be done to determine any what we call immediately dangerous to life or health or IDLH conditions. Examples would include exposure of a published limit, exposure over a radioactive material's dose limit, or other dangerous conditions like flammable materials or oxygen deficient environments. Now, periodic monitoring should also be done anytime that there is suspected change in an IDLH condition or if a flammable substance has been detected or maybe there's an indication that exposure levels have actually risen above those published limits. Periodic monitoring should also be done when work begins on a different part of the site. New contaminants are being handled, a different type of operation is started, or employees are handling leaking drums or containers or they are in areas with liquid contamination. Finally, monitoring of high risk employees needs to be done once the cleanup phase of the operation starts. Employers must monitor those workers who are likely to have the highest exposure to hazardous materials. This is going to be done through frequent personal sampling to monitor employee exposure. If you have one employee that's found to be over the public exposure limits, that monitoring must continue to determine all employees who are also over the limit. An established monitoring policy has got to describe what's being monitored, the equipment used, and how often monitoring is going to occur. A successful monitoring protocol can help determine if a risk is present before it becomes a serious hazard.
