In the United States, OSHA is the governing body for all things safety. But are there any regulations when it comes to hydration? Listen to Bubba Wolford as he explains "not really" and how legislation is a little bit behind the science and reality.
Jamie: How are companies — it seems like it's such an invisible thing, right? It's easy to say, I just fell down. But how, how often are they drawing that conclusion? And what is OSHA doing about it? Are there compliance or standards in place from OSHA that talk about hydration?
Bubba: There are not. The only standard that I know of is this called Cal/OSHA, which California has a standard around hydration. Also, the state of Washington has a standard, but they say nothing about electrolyte replacement. It all has to do with water.
(Learn more about Electrolytes: What They Are and Why They Matter for On-the-Job Hydration
.)
So, to answer your question, there is not a Federal regulation that's mandated like fall protection, hearing protection, things like that. However, they do have recommendations that they put out there for you to follow. So, whether it's, again, does not have to do with replacements of electrolytes, but it looks like it has to do with, you know, the environment, or like, there’s the ventilation. Do they have proper ventilation? Are they doing, say, quarterly training on heat stress prevention? Things like this that we can definitely help with to make sure that those recommendations are being met. And we have a program where we do actually do a facility assessment that is built around those OSHA recommendations.