(VCCEP) Tier 1 Pilot Submission for BENZENE - Tera

In the mid-1990s, the American Petroleum Institute (API) representing the oil and gas industry
conducted an occupational benzene exposure survey of the petroleum workers. It included data
that were representative of worker’s exposures in the manufacturing (refining) and distribution
(i.e. pipeline, marketing, and marine) aspects of the oil and gas industry during the years 1990
through 1995. The data consisted of approximately 50,000 full-shift and short-term personal air
monitoring sample results. This study did not collect information about the use of respiratory
protection associated with these industrial hygiene samples, so the actual exposure associated
with these data can not be fully determined; the use of respiratory protection would substantially
reduce exposures. A summary of the results of the API study by broad industry area is
presented in Table 7.42.
Benzene VCCEP Submission
March 2006
Table 7.42: API Benzene Industrial Hygiene Air
Sampling Study
Operation Number of Mean
Samples
(ppm)
Refinery 10,956 0.147
Pipeline 1,207 0.124
Marine 179 0.282
Marketing 1,352 0.192
The data presented are representative of full-shift typical exposures, not including turnarounds,
or upset conditions.
A supplemental literature search for data regarding benzene exposed workers in the U.S.
published since 1997 was conducted and yielded information related to exposure to benzene
during chemical production, exposure to jet fuel during military aircraft maintenance, exposure
to ambient air at an incinerator facility, exposure to smoke at western wildfires, and exposure to
smoke during structural firefighting activities, especially during overhaul (i.e. the postsuppression
inspection for hidden fires). The literature search also identified recent exposure
databases. These include the Navy Occupational Exposure Database (NOED), which contains
80,000 air samples collected by Navy industrial hygienists to assess workers’ chemical
exposures, and a similar database maintained by the U.S. Army. However, data from these
sources are not publicly available and therefore could not be considered in this exposure
assessment.
The recently published (i.e., 1997-2001) literature is summarized on Table 7.43. The
firefighters’ exposure to benzene is an example of a non-chain of commerce exposure. It is
expected that firefighters use their self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) when smoke
production is highest (i.e., initial attack or knockdown) (Reinhart and Ottmar, 2000), which is
also when the highest benzene levels have been measured (Austin et al., 2001a). Thus the
high benzene levels reported for the municipal fire fighter may not be representative of a fire
fighter’s actual benzene exposure.
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