Welding standards change coming for highway projects

Welding standards that once governed how welding was done on federal highway and bridge projects are changing. Now welds done on these projects will have to meet American Welding Society structural welding code. vladimir_n/iStock/Getty Images Plus

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has changed the minimum design standards that states have to use for resurfacing, restoration, and rehabilitation projects on freeways, including interstate highways. The agency is putting into its regulations American Welding Society (AWS) D1.1/D1.1M:2015, Structural Welding Code—Steel. That AWS code is broader than what the FHWA had been specifying since 2018—AASHTO/AWS D1.5M/D1.5:2015-AMD1, Bridge Welding Code. (AASHTO is the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.)

The FHWA is calling the Structural Welding Code a “refinement” because it covers welding of miscellaneous metal components for items such as light poles, sign supports, and railings that the Bridge Welding Code does not cover. The Structural Welding Code includes requirements for the design of welded connections composed of tubular, or nontubular, product form members. It contains the performance qualification tests that all welding personnel (welders, welding operators, and tack welders) must pass to perform welding in accordance with this code. It also includes general fabrication and erection for base metals, welding consumables, welding technique, welded details, material preparation and assembly, workmanship, weld repair, and requirements for welding studs to structural steel.

Use of the updated standard is required for all design work on national highway system projects authorized on or after Feb. 2, 2023, unless an extension is granted for unique or extenuating circumstances.

Metalworking Oil Under the Gun at the EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is widening its investigation of 1-Bromopropane (1-BP), a toxic chemical found in cutting oils used at metalworking facilities. 1-BP is one of 10 chemicals for which the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention issued final risk evaluations between 2020 and 2021 as a result of provisions in the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.

Passed in 2016, that law required the EPA to step up its game with regard to regulatory actions under the Toxic Substances Control Act. During those initial evaluations, which began in 2017, the EPA found “extensive unreasonable risks” for all 10 chemicals, which necessitated the agency coming up with “expeditiously promulgated risk-management rules.”

Those rules, now in development, will depend on an analysis of how each of the 10 chemicals affects what the EPA is calling “fenceline communities,” defined as general populations in proximity to air-emitting facilities or a receiving waterbody who may be disproportionately exposed to a chemical. For the air pathway, proximity goes out to 10,000 m from an air-emitting source. For the water pathway, proximity does not refer to a specific distance measured from a receiving waterbody, but rather to those members of the general population that may interact with the receiving waterbody and as a result might be exposed.

In its document published in January 2022, the EPA noted: “The use of 1-BP in metalworking fluids at quantities that would trigger TRI reporting is much more likely than the use of 1-BP in refrigerant flushes at these types of sites.” (TRI refers to the toxic release inventory.)

The term “fenceline communities” comes close to approximating “environmental justice” communities, concentrations of minority populations who the Biden administration believes have suffered from ill health effects after years of being exposed to pollutants from nearby emitters. Now the current heads of federal regulatory agencies have begun to include the possible effects on these communities in their analyses of prospective initiatives and actions.

Confirming the appearance of such language, the EPA said, “The agency anticipates the proposed screening level methodology can serve as a baseline analysis which can identify potential environmental justice concerns and inform future environmental justice analyses that assess racial and economic disparities in risk exposure under baseline and policy scenarios.”

Ana Corado, the EPA official in charge of the 1-BP screening effort, did not reply to inquiry about whether the agency is planning to reach out to metalworking facilities as part of its new investigation.