How a Comprehensive Fugitive Dust Control Plan May Help in Fostering a Healthy Environment?Wastewater Treatment EngineersUpdated on Jun 22, 2016 View more like this | Visit NEWTOWN, PA | Contact JNB Laboratories |
Fugitive dust emerges and combines into the air through unpaved roads, open fields land development activities, storage piles, handling of bulk materials, grain bins, mines and coal fired power plants.
Let’s take an example of unpaved road that creates fugitive dust. Well, most of the times while travelling through such a road on your respective vehicle, you must have noticed that when faster or larger vehicle passes through an unpaved road the more dust it creates, which is actually the fugitive dust causing severe accidents. It can be controlled by suppressing the dust on the roadside with water or gravel.
Why a Fugitive Dust Control Plan should be developed?
It is not just a nuisance, but it is hazardous to health as well if inhaled in huge quantity, especially if it includes disease spores, asbestos fibers, crystalline silica or heavy metals. Also, in case of dust storms, it reduces your visibility and can lead to accidents, resulting in injury or death. If it is deposited on plants, it destroys the soils and results in reduction of crop yields, as it interferes their growth by clogging the plants’ pores.
Fugitive dust also damages mechanical and electronic equipment. Moreover, if you didn’t controlled it at a worksite, then not only your foreman will face issues, but even people from neighbors will file complain against you and you shall have to pay fines, go through various legalities and etc.
Hence, development and implementation of comprehensive fugitive dust control plan is mandatory to ensure safety at all levels and avoid all sorts of inconvenience.
How to Control Fugitive Dust?
• Frequently sprinkle water over unpaved roads.
• Apply chemicals like magnesium chloride or calcium, wherever there is a need of groundwater protection plan.
• Control access of vehicles to such areas and restrict speed limits.
• Cover open piles
• Apply water or gravel on site exits
• Wash equipment daily before packing up work on site.
• Cover open trucks of sand.
Developing a Fugitive Dust Control Plan
1.First of all identify all the potential sources that emit fugitive dust.
2.Initiate with a site map and list down all the unpaved as well as the paved haul roads, parking lots, stockpiles, bulk material transfer spots, staging locations, construction sites and any other place where there is a possibility of wind erosion.
3.Find out about the routine traffic volumes and how frequently or occasionally paved and unpaved roads are being used.
4.Work on your dust control plan, determine the frequency of your measures and the frequency of each dust emission sources.
5.Prepare a checklist of fugitive dust control activities. Also, record the weather conditions on daily basis like expected rain, temperature, speed of wind and its direction. This will help you to assess the success of your fugitive dust control plan.
6.Keep a check on your dust control strategies consistently, to determine whether your devised plans are really controlling fugitive dust.
7.To consistently inspect your dust control efforts, make a checklist. This will ease you in integrating your daily dust control tasks within your schedule. You shall remain updated with your routine dust control efforts and hence, it will yield less related issues.
Fugitive dust does not only has an impact over people living in close proximity, but it travels at long distances as well. Researchers of Harvard and NASA identified this fact! These fugitive dust particles can travel from Asia to North America, North Africa to Florida and across the globe and effect people over there. Thus, it is highly important to devise fugitive dust prevention plans, in order to nurture healthy life of humans and nature globally!
Let’s take an example of unpaved road that creates fugitive dust. Well, most of the times while travelling through such a road on your respective vehicle, you must have noticed that when faster or larger vehicle passes through an unpaved road the more dust it creates, which is actually the fugitive dust causing severe accidents. It can be controlled by suppressing the dust on the roadside with water or gravel.
Why a Fugitive Dust Control Plan should be developed?
It is not just a nuisance, but it is hazardous to health as well if inhaled in huge quantity, especially if it includes disease spores, asbestos fibers, crystalline silica or heavy metals. Also, in case of dust storms, it reduces your visibility and can lead to accidents, resulting in injury or death. If it is deposited on plants, it destroys the soils and results in reduction of crop yields, as it interferes their growth by clogging the plants’ pores.
Fugitive dust also damages mechanical and electronic equipment. Moreover, if you didn’t controlled it at a worksite, then not only your foreman will face issues, but even people from neighbors will file complain against you and you shall have to pay fines, go through various legalities and etc.
Hence, development and implementation of comprehensive fugitive dust control plan is mandatory to ensure safety at all levels and avoid all sorts of inconvenience.
How to Control Fugitive Dust?
• Frequently sprinkle water over unpaved roads.
• Apply chemicals like magnesium chloride or calcium, wherever there is a need of groundwater protection plan.
• Control access of vehicles to such areas and restrict speed limits.
• Cover open piles
• Apply water or gravel on site exits
• Wash equipment daily before packing up work on site.
• Cover open trucks of sand.
Developing a Fugitive Dust Control Plan
1.First of all identify all the potential sources that emit fugitive dust.
2.Initiate with a site map and list down all the unpaved as well as the paved haul roads, parking lots, stockpiles, bulk material transfer spots, staging locations, construction sites and any other place where there is a possibility of wind erosion.
3.Find out about the routine traffic volumes and how frequently or occasionally paved and unpaved roads are being used.
4.Work on your dust control plan, determine the frequency of your measures and the frequency of each dust emission sources.
5.Prepare a checklist of fugitive dust control activities. Also, record the weather conditions on daily basis like expected rain, temperature, speed of wind and its direction. This will help you to assess the success of your fugitive dust control plan.
6.Keep a check on your dust control strategies consistently, to determine whether your devised plans are really controlling fugitive dust.
7.To consistently inspect your dust control efforts, make a checklist. This will ease you in integrating your daily dust control tasks within your schedule. You shall remain updated with your routine dust control efforts and hence, it will yield less related issues.
Fugitive dust does not only has an impact over people living in close proximity, but it travels at long distances as well. Researchers of Harvard and NASA identified this fact! These fugitive dust particles can travel from Asia to North America, North Africa to Florida and across the globe and effect people over there. Thus, it is highly important to devise fugitive dust prevention plans, in order to nurture healthy life of humans and nature globally!
