Section 296-307-62605. Identify and evaluate respiratory hazards.

You must:

• Make sure employees are protected from potentially hazardous exposure while you perform your evaluation

• Perform your evaluation without considering the protection provided to employees by a respirator

• Determine the form of the hazard, such as dust, mist, gas, oxygen deficiency, or biological agent

• Make sure you consider:

– Potential emergency and rescue situations that may occur, such as equipment or power failures, uncontrolled chemical reactions, fire, explosion, or human error

– Workplace conditions such as work processes, types of material, control methods, work practices and environmental conditions.

• Determine or reasonably estimate whether any employee is or could be exposed to any of the following:

– Any airborne substance above a permissible exposure limit (PEL) listed in Table 3

– A substance at or above the action level (AL) specified in the rule for that substance

– Any other respiratory hazard.

• Use any of the following to determine employee exposure:

– Information that would allow an estimate of the level of employee exposure, such as MSDSs or pesticide labels, observations, measurements or calculations

– Data demonstrating that a particular product, material or activity cannot result in employee exposure at or above the AL or PEL

– Personal air samples that represent an employee's usual or worst case exposure for the entire shift.

Note:	• Rules for specific substances may contain additional requirements for determining employee exposure.
	• Use methods of sampling and analysis that have been validated by the laboratory performing the analysis.
	• Samples from a representative group of employees may be used for other employees performing the same work activities when the duration and level of exposure are similar.

You must:

• Consider the atmosphere to be immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH) when you cannot determine or reasonably estimate employee exposure

• Make sure employee exposure, to 2 or more substances with additive health effects, is evaluated using this formula:

[Statutory Authority: RCW 49.17.010, 49.17.040, 49.17.050, 49.17.060. WSR 05-01-166, § 296-307-62605, filed 12/21/04, effective 4/2/05.]

RCW 49.17.010, 49.17.040, 49.17.050, 49.17.060. WSR 05-01-166, § 296-307-62605, filed 12/21/04, effective 4/2/05.