Details - Public Health Image Library(PHIL)

ID#:

22754

Caption:

This 2016 image depicted the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a 24/7 activity, and showed how the need for occupational health and safety, never stops. NIOSH researchers from the Western States Division, and the Division of Applied Research and Technology, were the first to systematically document hazardous exposures to workers at fracking sites, including exposures to respirable crystalline silica (RCS), diesel particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds. This sand mover operator was monitoring the sand level in the blender tub, framed in the bottom left handrail. His half-face cartridge respirator, may not have been providing a high enough assigned protection factor to protect him from the elevated concentration of RCS, to which he was exposed. This photograph was taken in Encinal, Texas, during a test of a NIOSH-developed engineering control, known as the NIOSH mini-baghouse retrofit assembly, installed to reduce RCS emissions.