OSHA: Proposed Standard For Indoor Air Quality: ETS Hearings, September 22, 1994
OSHA: Proposed Standard For Indoor Air Quality: ETS Hearings, September 22, 1994
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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
PUBLIC HEARING
PROPOSED STANDARD FOR INDOOR AIR QUALITY
Thursday, September 22, 1994
U. S. Department of Interior
Washington, D.C.
The above-entitled matter came on for hearing, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m.
BEFORE: HONORABLE JOHN VITTONE
Administrative Law Judge
AGENDA
PAGE
Discussion 637
Hal Levin
Hal Levin & Associates 649
Questions:
Jim Dinegar 682
Rex Tingle 694
John Rupp 698
Jim Dinegar 713
Joseph Lstiburek 716
Questions:
Rex Tingle 753
Cathy Sarri 758
Lee Hathan 768
Ms. Sherman 771
Dr. Jonathan Michael Samet 775
Questions:
Rex Tingle 793
Jim Denigar 794
Ted Grossman 803
Pat Sirridge 872
John Rupp 902
Steven Bayard 929
Ms. Sherman 933
EXHIBITS
EXHIBIT NO. IDENTIFIED RECEIVED
23 681 681
24 740 741
P R O C E E D I N G S
(9:03 p.m.)
JUDGE VITTONE: We recessed yesterday evening, and we'll resume this morning. We are on the record.
We have three witnesses scheduled for today. Before proceeding with the witnesses, though, I would like to go back to a matter that we raised yesterday at the hearing, the request from Mr. Tyson that was supported by other participants in this proceeding.
Mr. Tyson requested yesterday that there be an adjustment made in the schedule. In particular, his request was that the schedule be adjusted in the following manner: that we hold two weeks worth of hearings and then have a week off, and then hold two weeks and then have a week off, so we complete all of the witnesses.
The people have already been scheduled, but to adjust the schedule will be somewhat difficult, but I have been looking at the schedule in light of statements made yesterday. I must say, I do have somewhat of a concern with respect to process here.
I'm not so much concerned with the inconvenience or disruption from the parties who are participating, but I am somewhat concerned with respect to the orderly procedure so that this record is developed in a complete way as possible, and in a manner that we proceed so that all parties have a fair opportunity to participate to get their positions on the record and to develop whatever questions in an adequate manner that they believe should be raised in this proceeding, in support or in opposition to the proposed rule.
As I looked through the schedule yesterday, I see that we are scheduled to go through the week of October 14th. There will be a break for the week of October 17th. Resume again on October the 24th. Recess on November 22nd for the Thanksgiving holiday, then resume on the next week, the week of the 28th, and go until Friday, December 2nd.
I have a proposal that I would like that parties to consider. I'm just going to ask that you consider it now and think about it, because I think you have to look at who might be involved. I think that a possible way of not extending the proceeding for any great length of time but a way of developing some breaks in between the schedule that we presently have, so that there will be some time for the more orderly development, I believe, of this record.
My proposal would be this, and I ask that you think about it.
The third week of the schedule that we have scheduled here has a number of witnesses, and we would go that entire -- we're supposedly going to be scheduled to go that entire week, from October the 3rd through October the 7th.
The week of November 7th, which is a short week in that there is a holiday there -- we're only scheduled to be in hearing for four days, I was wondering if it would be possible to move as a group, en masse, that entire week of witnesses, for the week of December the 5th, and then move the week of November 7th, that group of witnesses, until the week of December the 19th, since there are four days scheduled there.
That way, we would only be extending the entire time of the hearings by another two to three weeks, but it would be at a pace that might benefit all of us in the course of our proceedings.
Also, it would provide some flexibility, in that if there are some witnesses -- and we are already falling a little behind here -- if there are some witnesses whose schedule we cannot meet under the schedule as it is right now, whose appearance we cannot meet under the schedule, we might be able to come back, say, during the week of October 3rd and hold a day's worth of hearings and get those people in or at some other point.
It might give us a little bit more flexibility as far as making sure that the people that we have not been able to get to, according to this schedule, might be able to come in and we can work them in on a day that we might be off.
I throw that out for you all to consider, and I'm going to depend on you because I'm not familiar with the people who are listed, and I'm not sure how much of an imposition this would be by changing the schedule that we have here.
It seems to me, if we can do that, as I said, we are only extending this hearing by another couple of weeks, for the scheduled witnesses, and we would be able to complete all of them before the end of the year. Now, I realize there probably will be some adjustments where people will be moved around anyway, and I certainly don't have a problem with that.
There is another question that I would like to raise, through. There is a Week 11 scheduled, or tentatively scheduled, I guess, and the only description I have is 510 participants whose notices of intention to appear were filed as a group.
In some of our discussions, I guess there is some question whether these people actually will appear or will not appear to testify.
If they do appear, or any number of them appear, then we have to have an additional period of time for those people to appear.
I would like for you to think about that proposal, take a look at the schedule, the people who are listed for those weeks, October 3rd and November 7th, and maybe we could bring it up right after lunch, and you can tell me how you feel about it, but that's my proposal.
It seems to me it builds a little more flexibility, but it's still a very reasonable pace. It's still a very intense pace for all of us and one that, if we can't adhere to, we will still be done with the public hearings by the end of December.
MR. GORDON: Could I ask for clarification, Your Honor?
JUDGE VITTONE: Sure.
MR. GORDON: You suggested moving the week of October 3rd through 7, through the week of December 5th.
JUDGE VITTONE: My proposal is that we take the week of October 3rd and move that whole week until December the 5th.
MR. GORDON: Right. Now what I was confused about was the week of November 7 to 10. Are you moving that to the week of December 12 or the week of December 19th?
JUDGE VITTONE: I would propose to move it until the week of December the 19th.
MR. GORDON: That would cause a lot of problems, because that is the pre-Christmas week.
JUDGE VITTONE: I don't have children anymore, so I don't really think about it.
[Laughter]
JUDGE VITTONE: I'm sorry. Okay. I appreciate that. I'm open for anything that's reasonable. If we do that December 5th, if you wanted to start, say, the 14th through the 15th and then finish the 19th or whatever, it would give you a week before Christmas.
MR. GORDON: And I'd like clarification on another matter, for which some of the tobacco people might wish to comment.
JUDGE VITTONE: Sure.
MR. GORDON: We don't know how many of the 510 will show up. This will require moving them into January, I think, because of the uncertainties of how many would show up, unless we had a commitment from the tobacco people, to letting us know how many are actually going to show up.
The other thing is, since it's crucial to the department to keep this on schedule, would the post-hearing comment periods commence running from, say, December 19th as opposed to whatever day in January these 510 would run to, those would be important considerations for the Department.
JUDGE VITTONE: If you're able to comment now or if you would rather wait and take it up after lunch,
but -- Mr. Tyson, I think maybe you better come up to the podium so we can hear you.
MR. GORDON: Excuse me, Your Honor. I'm Charles Gordon. I'm counsel for Health Standards of the Solicitor's of Labor Office.
JUDGE VITTONE: I'm sorry, Mr. Gordon. That was my fault. Thank you.
MR. TYSON: Pat Tyson representing Philip Morris. We are attempting to contact a number of the people that are in the 500-and-whatever the number is, and we anticipate that some of them are going to want to testify. At this point, I can't give you a feel for the number of those, but clearly some will come and intend to testify.
MR. GORDON: Your Honor, could --
JUDGE VITTONE: Just a second. For the record, who are these people? Is there a way to describe them?
MR. TYSON: There are a number of people who have been contacted by representatives of the industry and in the industry has indicated their willingness and desire to come testify at this hearing.
JUDGE VITTONE: So, essentially, they're private citizens?
MR. TYSON: Yes. They're employers.
JUDGE VITTONE: They're what?
MR. TYSON: They will be employers, in most cases, but they are not large organizations.
JUDGE VITTONE: Okay. Small businessmen?
MR. TYSON: Typically.
JUDGE VITTONE: Typically small businessman. Okay. I'm sorry. Mr. Gordon?
MR. GORDON: If you could ask counsel for the tobacco people for clarification. Putting that group into January, with uncertainty of the numbers is less of a problem if we begin the post-hearing comment period from December 9th, or whatever date we finish the testimony of all the witnesses. Would that be agreeable?
MR. TYSON: Well, I mean the whole purpose of the post-hearing comment period is to allow all parties the opportunity to review in detail the hearings themselves. That requirement doesn't change, and therefore I think the time originally set is a reasonable time, and it should begin at the end of the hearing.
JUDGE VITTONE: What is the time now set for post-hearing comments? How many days, 60?
MR. TYSON: 60, and then 30 for brief.
MR. GORDON: But, you know, that was a suggestion in your guidelines.
JUDGE VITTONE: Is it possible that some of these people would be willing, or a number of them would be willing, to submit their comments in writing? That is possible. It is also possible that some of these individuals may wish to schedule time, if time is available in the earlier part of the schedule, assuming we may have some breaks in there where we don't take full days. I don't anticipate that these witnesses will wish to testify for a long period of time.
JUDGE VITTONE: I think I probably know what the answer is going to be, but I assume these people are not just local people from the Washington, D.C. area, but
from --
MR. TYSON: You are correct, Your Honor.
JUDGE VITTONE: -- from across the country?
MR. TYSON: Yes, Your Honor.
JUDGE VITTONE: Certainly, if during the schedule of the people we have scheduled now, if there is some free time and you are able, let's say something happens and half of our witnesses drop out on a particular day and we only have a half a day, would the Department have any objection to bringing some of these people in for that afternoon, or something like that?
MR. GORDON: So long as it's orderly, we would have no objection.
MR. TYSON: Our problem with that, of course, is we would need to know with some degree of advanced notice when those dates might be.
JUDGE VITTONE: All right.
Do you have any other questions, Mr. Gordon?
MR. GORDON: No, Your Honor.
JUDGE VITTONE: Anyway, that's my proposal. I would like for you all to think about it. Take a look at the witnesses. As I said, I think you probably know them a heck of a lot better -- I know you know them better than I do, but give me your thoughts after the lunch break, and we'll talk about it, and one way or the other, I'll bite the bullet.
MR. GORDON: Thank you.
MR. TYSON: Thank you, Your Honor.
JUDGE VITTONE: Ms. Ward.
MS. WARD: May I just get a clarification of what Mr. Gordon was saying?
JUDGE VITTONE: Sure.
MS. WARD: Your proposal was to begin the post-hearing comment period at the end of the last of the calendar witnesses.
MR. GORDON: Yes. Started running. Not ended, of course, just started running from that period.
MS. WARD: Right. It would start the 60-day period running from then, but not to include the nameless 510?
MR. GORDON: Well, obviously, they can make post-hearing comments too as long as they make it within the period.
MS. WARD: Right. But I'm just talking about the period that it would run. You're not proposing that if we continue with, say, the October 3 witnesses into December 5, you're not proposing that the post-hearing comment period begin running on December 5 or until those witnesses and the witnesses of November 7, to whenever they've moved have testified?
MR. GORDON: Yes. Wait until they have testified, until all of the calendar witnesses, as you called them, have testified.
MS. WARD: Okay. That's all I wanted to know. Thank you.
MR. GORDON: I have to clarify, it's not my proposal, it's my clarification.
[Laughter]
JUDGE VITTONE: Okay. Thank you very much.
Our first witness for this morning -- let me ask the Department. Ms. Sherman, who is the first witness?
MS. SHERMAN: I would like to introduce Mr. Hal Levin.
JUDGE VITTONE: Mr. Levin, would you come forward, please?
Are you going to ask him some questions, or are you going to let him --
MS. SHERMAN: I'm going to let him speak.
JUDGE VITTONE: All right. Mr. Levin, would you state your name and your affiliation and present whatever testimony you have?
MR. LEVIN: All right.
JUDGE VITTONE: Am I in your way here, by the way?
MR. LEVIN: No, I don't think so.
HAL LEVIN
HAL LEVIN & ASSOCIATES
MR. LEVIN: My name is Hal Levin, and I'm self-employed as a consultant and researcher on indoor air quality. My work focuses primarily on consultation to building owners; designers, primarily architects and engineers, and, in some cases, employers and occasionally employees, with regard to indoor air quality issues, in new buildings and in remodeled, renovated buildings.
My work on indoor air quality began in 1978, when I was appointed as a research specialist in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California at Berkeley, and I've been involved with the subject almost exclusively since 1983.
My consultation has included state and federal government agencies, local government agencies, and even foreign government agencies.
I've also taught courses at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz on the subject and lectured extensively on symposia and seminars and taught continuing education courses for Harvard University Graduate School Design, the International Facility Management Association and others.
I've published more than 70 articles and over 2000 total pages on the subject of indoor air quality, both as editor of the newsletter, Indoor Air Quality Update, published by Cutter Information Service, from its founding until 1988, until February of '91 and, since that time, Indoor Air Bulletin, which I edit and publish myself.
My public service includes, since 1985, at its founding, the chairmanship of ASTM Subcommittee D22.05 on indoor air, a Committee which develops standards for sampling an analysis of indoor air;
Since 1992, chairman of ASHRAE's Guideline Project Committee GPC10P;
Criteria for achieving acceptable indoor environments;
And I'm currently a member of ASHRAE SSPC62, Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, as well as a member of several other ASHRAE Committees.
I'm here to testify in support of the OSHA proposal.
(Slide Presentation.)
Reasons for my support include my experience in the field, where I've also conducted investigations of indoor air quality problems, primarily in office buildings, but also in other types of facilities, including retail and educational facilities.
It's been my observation that, in many cases, building ventilation systems simply fail to deliver the necessary outside air due either to insufficient capacity or improper operation of those systems, either the timing and scheduling of the operations or the management of the controls for them.
It's been my observation that building ventilation systems are inadequately designed or not operated according to the need to handle the pollutant or thermal loads that are present. I apologize for the misspellings.
Published literature on indoor air quality consistently points to the higher prevalence of health and comfort problems in buildings with low ventilation rates.
Filtration is often inadequate in these buildings, due to filters not being properly sized and specified;
Filters not being tightly fitted into their frames or, in some cases, completely missing from the system;
Insufficient circulation of air through the air handling system in order to provide an opportunity for the filters to remove, according to their rated capacity, or filters being poorly maintained, resulting in odors and microbial contaminants.
Problems are often found in the air distribution system. In other systems, ductwork is not properly connected, or it's not even connected at all, to the diffusers.
Outside air used for ventilation is often contaminated; becomes a source of exposure that may result in material harm to the occupants.
This can result from entrainment of exhaust, from idling trucks at loading docks, from building exhausts, or from vehicles entering garages, odors from garbage dumpsters, entrainment of exhaust fumes from vehicles entering parking garages located at the lower portion of the building, and many other sources.
Very often indoor air quality problems result from the use of spaces for purposes for which they were not intended and for which the ventilation system was inadequate or totally inappropriate. Very frequently, we find space, air distribution problems.
As a result, I see a need for better operation and maintenance in order to achieve good air quality. Adequate training of housekeeping staff is often totally lacking or minimal, at best, and often this lack of training and improper techniques or inappropriately applied materials result in significant air quality deterioration.
There is a need for the employees themselves, especially in the private sector, to have access to information about their work place environment, including the quality of the indoor air and the operations of the building operators that affect it.
There is a need for employers to be able to request and obtain assistance, including indoor air quality investigation, if necessary, when air quality-related problems persist.
There's a need for clear records of building design, intent, operation, and maintenance.
The California Occupational Safety & Health Administration rule regarding building ventilation requires documentation of HVAC system maintenance and inspection, required by the rule, and retention of such records for at least five years. This rule was adopted in 1987 and has been in force and has done much to enable the California OSHA as well as the protected employees to obtain better indoor air quality.
There is a need for improved and widely useful and effective assessment tool to investigate cases of poor IAQ, and there's a need for implementation of source control to limit people's exposure.
MS. SHERMAN: Excuse me. Could you label the slide that you just spoke with, both on the hard copy and for the transcript, so we'll be able, in reviewing the transcript, tell what you just spoke about.
MR. LEVIN: Okay. That was labeled The Need.
MS. SHERMAN: Thank you. And if you could do it on all succeeding slides.
MR. LEVIN: This slide is labeled Reasons for Support of the OSHA Proposal.
First and foremost, in my mind, it makes good economic sense, it's likely to produce improvements and productivity and building operating efficiency that will far outweigh the costs of implementing the rule.
The reasons for this are employer costs for office workers in salaries and benefits is approximately 10 times the employer costs for the buildings themselves.
Small increases in productivity easily offset any additional expenses required to improve the environment that enables the productivity increases.
Improving IAQ is cost effective.
Avoided costs of resolving problems of poor IAQ are much greater than the costs of improving the indoor air quality.
Preventive maintenance, plus good ventilation system, operating procedures, will increase productivity and create more income for building owners.
This is labeled for Reasons for the Support of the OSHA Proposal, Continued:
No. 6: Energy costs of building ventilation are much less than 1 percent of the salaried costs of office workers. So small savings and energy costs by low ventilation significantly affects indoor air quality.
Resulting economic losses can be 10 to 100 times the energy cost savings.
Conversely, small incremental increases in energy costs for building ventilation can dramatically reduce contaminant concentrations, including infectious microorganisms, volatile organic chemicals, and particulate matter.
Increases in outdoor air ventilation rates through the use of outside air economizer cycles can be obtained in most parts of the United States for many parts of the year at no additional energy costs and, in many instances, at substantial energy cost savings.
This slide shows two graphs, labeled Figure 3 and Figure 4, and they illustrate the point I just made with respect to the costs of energy for 8 different locations -- 12 different locations of the
United States -- and they show that even in the most expensive areas, such as Miami, energy costs for going from 2.5 liters per second, or 5 cubic feet per minute outside air, to 20 cubic feet per minute outside air, increase less than 5 percent.
The dollar costs, therefore, are very small from such increases, even in the most adverse climates. We see lower increases for the cold weather locations, such an Minneapolis.
This slide, entitled General Comments: Good IAQ is like preventive medicine, daily exercise or good dietary habits; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Experience from numerous lawsuits, and I've been involved in over a dozen involving indoor air quality problems, suggests that prudent avoidance is generally wise, although allocation of resources is always an issue in the reality of limited resources.
Public health perspectives suggest that material harm that occurs from exposure to poor air quality is not only directly observable in terms of absenteeism, illness, and reduced worker productivity, but that there are large personal and societal costs associated with the direct effects, as well as the exacerbation or potentiation of other risk factors.
This slide has no title. The first line: Employers are more concerned generally than the building managers or developers.
Even in owner-employer occupied or operated facilities, there may be a division of management responsibilities for worker productivity and/or health care cost containment and/or responsibilities for facility development, management, and operation.
In my experience, this division of responsibility means that people responsible for production don't necessarily consider the implications of poor indoor air quality and the need for attention to this in the design and operation of facilities due to the effects of poor air quality on worker health and productivity.
Meanwhile, decisions by facilities managers to reduce costs of construction or operational costs are usually made with little to no concern for the impact on worker health and productivity since these people are not working from the same budgets and are not evaluated on the basis of the impact on health and productivity.
Slide entitled Table 3: Types of predominant environmental stressors, from Dr. Jim Woods; a presentation at a congressional hearing in 1987, where he identifies from over 30 investigations conducted by him and his colleagues while at Honeywell's indoor air diagnostics program, the prevalence in problem buildings in percent.
That is, all of the buildings investigated were problem buildings.
By type of environmental stressor would be:
Chemical and particulate contaminants, 75 percent;
With 70 percent of the total with odor discomfort.
55 percent with thermal discomfort;
45 percent with microbiological contaminants; and,
30 percent non-thermal humidity problems, with eye irritation and mold growth, from low and high relative humidities, respectively.
Slide titled Table 4: Frequencies of occurrence of physical causes of problem buildings, from Dr. Woods, again the same presentation, and the same data set.
He found problems from design in terms of the physical cause in the HVAC systems, inadequate outdoor air, 75 percent of the investigations.
Inadequate supplier distribution to occupied space is 65 percent.
Inadequate return air and exhaust air 75 percent.
Equipment problems; inadequate filtration of supplier 65 percent.
Inadequate drain lines and drain pens 60 percent.
Contaminated ductwork or duct linings 45 percent.
Malfunctioning humidifiers, 20 percent.
Inadequate access panels to equipment, 60 percent; and,
Operational problems, including inappropriate control strategies, 90 percent.
In addition maintenance, 75 percent.
Thermal contaminant load changes 60 percent.
I think most of these problems are addressed by the Rule and represent one of the major reasons for my support of the Rule.
With respect to productivity and indoor air quality, it is clear that worker costs dwarf building costs. Small increases in productivity produce economic returns that far outweigh the investment in the environment required to achieve them.
Employer costs per employee -- that is, salaries, plus benefits, insurance, et cetera -- for office workers range from an estimated low of around $125 to around $500 per square foot per year, depending on salary level and square footage allocated.
Typical values, considering the usual matches of salary levels and space allocations range from $150 to $250 per square foot per year. Using $40,000 as the employer's annual office worker cost and $200 gross square feet per worker, an annual building cost of $20 per square foot, the annual building cost is about 10 percent of the total cost of worker and building.
This does not include training and other investments and costs prior to actual productive period for the worker.
Of this 10 percent, building ventilation and building cleaning repairs and maintenance, account for less than 2 percent. These are the factors that most affect indoor air quality.
An increase in productivity of 3 percent, as estimated by OSHA, could pay for more than a doubling in the expenses for the factors that most effect indoor air quality.
Slide entitled: Potential impacts of OSHA's Proposed Rule. The 3 percent estimate of productivity improvements achievable through the Proposed Rule is a reasonable one; however, it is difficult to obtain reliable data to precisely estimate the actual improvements that are possible.
I believe it is plausible that the improvements in productivity could be considerably larger if the real costs of poor indoor air quality were actually taken into account.
This is titled Components of Costs, and represents a series of slides showing the assumptions underlying my conclusions about productivity.
Approximately 4 percent of office building debt services for the mechanical equipment. The debt service represents only about half of building costs. These are very rough numbers but I think representative.
So the actual annual costs for building mechanical equipment is less than 2 percent of the total building costs. Again, the 3 percent increase in productivity estimated by OSHA, as a result of the Rule, would easily pay for a doubling of this investment and leave enough to double the energy expenses to operate it.
I'm not necessarily suggesting that we do this, nor am I suggesting that these investments would be required by the Rule. I simply make these statements to illustrate how I view the return from this Rule as being an economic gain for everyone concerned.
Very much smaller investments in expenditures will actually be required to achieve the improvements in the indoor air quality that OSHA has estimated to produce the three percent increase in productivity.
Components of Costs, Slide 2: Building operating costs. Typical building costs, including cleaning, repairs, security, roads, grounds, utilities, taxes and maintenance are about $3 to $10 per square foot per year.
In 1989 to 1990, total operating expenses, operating and fixed, averaged $8.23 per square foot and $8.47 per square foot, according to the 1991 BOMA Experience Exchanging Report, Income/Expense Analysis for Office Buildings, by the building owners and Managers Association International. BOMA International.
Median values for total operating expenses were $4.55 per square foot and $4.66 per square foot in 1989 and 1990, respectively.
Components of Costs, Slide 3: Energy Costs.
Building energy costs for office buildings are about $1 to $2 per square foot per year. This varies greatly from region to region. Typically, about 35 percent to 65 percent of this energy cost will be heating, cooling, and ventilating buildings with mechanical HVAC systems.
Ventilating costs vary by building, region, season, and local costs of energy. Energy costs alone vary from less than 4 cents per kilowatt hour to more than 16 cents per kilowatt hour in different parts of the
United States.
I might add that per square foot energy consumption varies from a low of around 25,000 to 30,000 BTUs per square foot per year to something on the order of 200,000 BTUs per square foot per year or more, a very large range, depending on the condition of the building and the degree to which energy concerns have been addressed.