The Labor Department will publish a notice in Friday's Federal Register on a request to continue gathering data on noise exposures in mining. The current collection approval expires Aug. 31, and the department wants to extend it for three more years without any change to existing requirements. DOL notes that "[r]epeated exposure to high levels of sound over time causes occupational noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), a serious and often profound physical impairment in mining, with far-reaching psychological and social effects."
