The American Society of Safety Engineers announced it will develop a standard aimed at protecting workers when dealing with mold remediation. The purpose of the standard, announced at the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists' "Mold Remediation: The National Quest for Uniformity" symposium in Orlando, Fla., is to establish minimum requirements and recommended procedures to be implemented by employers to minimize employee exposure to mold. The proposed standard will not, however, establish an exposure level or action level for identification purposes, or trigger remediation activities.

"Mold is an important safety, health and environmental issue for everyone," ASSE Environmental Practice Specialty member Mary Ann Latko, CSP, CIH, QEP, said in her symposium presentation. "Since safety, health and environmental professionals are already responding to mold-related concerns and are working without a universally accepted standard from a cognizant authority, a standard aimed at protecting workers is very much needed."

Because there is no one universally accepted consensus standard that can be held as the standard of care to protect mold remediation workers in an indoor environment, ASSE petitioned the American National Standards Institute to be the secretariat of a canvass standard initiative, Z690, to address worker safety and health during mold remediation projects. ANSI approved the petition. Also, the ASSE Board of Directors unanimously approved the ASSE "Position Statement Regarding Mold in the Indoor Working Environment" in October.