July 18, 1990

Mr. Edward K. Wright
Safety Director
Anderson Equipment Company
Post Office Box 339
Bridgeville, Pennsylvania 15017

Dear Mr. Wright:

This is in response to your inquiry of June 11 concerning the application of training requirements in the Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard (29 CFR 1910.120) to employees doing occasional maintenance or service repair work on a disposal site.

Employees are not covered by the standard if they:

1. Work exclusively within uncontaminated areas of the hazardous waste site.

2. Do not enter areas where hazardous waste may exist, are stored or are processed; and

3. Are not exposed to health or safety hazards related to hazardous waste operations.

It is unclear from your letter whether the workers remain exclusively within uncontaminated areas. If employees' work activities do not meet all of the exclusion criteria described above and the disposal site falls under the scope of the standard (see 1910.120(a)(1)(iv)) then employees must be trained for the duration and in the subjects specified in 1910.120(p)(7).

I hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely,



Patricia K. Clark Director
Designate Directorate of Compliance Programs




June 11, 1990

Ms. Patricia Clark
Acting Director,
Office of Health Compliance
Occupational Safety
and Health Administration
Room N-3463
U.S. Department of Labor
200 Constitution Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20210

Dear Ms. Clark:

I am writing to you at the suggestion of Mr. Mike Moore of the Office of Information and Consumer Affairs with regard to a written interpretation of our company status with regard to Law 1910.120.

To explain our position you should know that Anderson Equipment Company is engaged in the sales and service of heavy construction equipment. We have, on occasion, sold some of this equipment to companies engaged in the refuse disposal business, which necessitates our appearing on a disposal site on occasion to do maintenance or service repair work.

Last week, we had an occasion to go onto a site to install a safety belt in an operator's cab. The Safety Compliance person on the site refused our mechanic admission, stating that it was necessary for him to have 40 continuous hours of hazard waste training and at least three days experience on a site in the tow of an experienced employee.

This was the first occasion we have had this demand made of our service employees. I have ordered and read a copy of the 1910.120 law and nowhere in that law does it specifically identify that a company, such as ours engaged in infrequent service trips to a site, must incur the cost of such an extensive training program.

I explained this situation to your Mr. Mike Moore and he said that it was not the intent of the law to include people such as ourselves or the people who put soda in the pop machines and other occasional visitors to come under this training program and that with the normal hazard recognition and instruction the waste site operator is to impart to any visitor that our people should be adequately covered for their short period of exposure.

Mike suggested that I write to you to get a letter of official interpretation that would suffice when presented to the site operator that our employees were exempt from this extensive training.

We would appreciate your written response as soon as convenient and we would like to thank you in advance for your consideration.

Should you have any questions or wish to discuss this request with me, I am available at our Bridgeville, Pennsylvania office at 412-343-2300 most working days between 8:30 A.M. and 5:00 P.M.

Yours very truly,



ANDERSON EQUIPMENT COMPANY

Edward K. Wright
Safety Director

EKW:skd