Industrial Hygiene & Health & Safety Services

GEL Engineering provide State of South Carolina Department of Environmental Services (SCDES) licensed asbestos building inspectors, air samplers, management planners, and project designers to perform asbestos consulting services to ensure client are compliant with the applicable local, State, and Federal asbestos regulations.

Our skilled personnel perform oversite, asbestos air monitoring and on-site analysis of asbestos air samples for asbestos abatement projects to confirm compliance with the applicable asbestos regulations. Additionally, we perform visual inspections and post-asbestos abatement “clearance” air monitoring to ensure safe occupancy of unprotected personnel from asbestos hazards.

Our trained staff provides U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)-trained LBP inspectors, LBP risk assessors, LBP supervisors, and LBP, and project designers. We conduct inspections of painted components and systems in industrial, commercial, educational, medical, and residential structures to identify paint coating that contains lead, the quantities of each LBP, the current condition of the LBP, and the LBP locations. Our specialists provide guidance on the proper asbestos abatement options (e.g., manage in place, remove, encapsulate, repair, or enclose).

GEL Engineering’s industrial hygiene personnel perform industrial hygiene airborne exposure assessments for industrial, commercial, academic, medical care, residential, and community populations. Our staff will conduct a thorough inspection and review of the industrial processes; Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) for the chemicals used in the process; existing engineering, process, and administrative controls; and identify and categorize employees within Similar Exposure Groups (SEGs) who are exposure to each industrial process. We then develop a strategic plan to evaluate personal airborne exposures to various chemicals, secondary/tertiary reaction compounds, and other thermal/chemical reactive that may be liberated during the industrial process.

Some companies require specialty industrial hygiene services to ensure the health and safety of their personnel and clients. GEL Engineering’s staff is adept at:

• Engineering ventilation design guidance
• Heat stress evaluation and control
• Ergonomic evaluations
• Illumination engineering surveys
• Respiratory protection assessment
• PPE assessment
• Health & safety review of new processes

For industrial, commercial, residential, hospital, and communities, GEL Engineering’s experts can conduct personal full (8-hours) and/or extended (10- and 12-hours) work shift average noise exposures for SEGs in heterogeneous portions of the facility. This process involves instantaneous noise level mapping of the complex to identify and demarcate the hazardous noise areas and hazardous noise-producing equipment, powered tools, and other mechanical equipment.

Our Certified Industrial Hygienists (C.I.H.) offer a review and audit of a company’s existing written health and safety programs to ensure up-to-date compliance with the applicable Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards. We can also develop site-specific written health and safety programs for individual facilities.

Indoor air quality, microbiological, and mold assessments in residential and commercial environments are important to ensure the health of residents, employees, and visitors. These assessments may include:

• Evaluation of the migration of chemicals into the buildings from soil/groundwater contamination,
• Amplification and proliferation of mold material from the intrusion of moisture/water into the facility,
• Off-gassing of chemicals from new building products (e.g., insulation, fabrics, carpet, mastics/glues/adhesives, paint, oriented strand board, pesticide treatment chemicals), and
• Evaluation of rodents, insects, vermin, birds, bats, infestation, both live and dead, and/or contamination of fecal matter and associated fungi.

Our C.I.H. and Registered Sanitarians (R.S.) are qualified in federal and several states of law as an expert witness for the following areas of expertise:

• Mold and moisture evaluations, inspections, risk assessment, monitoring, design, and abatement oversite,
• Mold, fungal, bacterial, and various mammalian and avian fecal matter exposures, testing, controls, and remediation,
• Airborne and skin contact hazard identification, odor evaluations, testing, and remediation of various chemical systems (e.g., expandable foam insulation, flooring mastics, Chinese drywall, cement, radon, urea-formaldehyde insulation, and crystalline silica quartz) for construction or renovation activities of residential, commercial, and industrial structures,
• Comprehensive Industrial Hygiene hazards pertaining to workers compensation claims, injury/illness, and other adverse health exposures and risks,
• Asbestos and LBP exposures and illness investigations,
• Microbiological hazards pertaining to development of Legionellosis, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), histoplasmosis, psittacosis, and cryptococcosis, and
• Comprehensive Environmental Health and Sanitation hazards.