Urban Roadway Runoff Is Lethal to Juvenile Coho, Steelhead, and Chinook Salmonids, But Not Congeneric Sockeye.

We compared the sensitivity of closely related Pacific salmon and steelhead (Oncorhynchus spp.) to untreated urban stormwater runoff across three storm events. Juvenile coho, sockeye, steelhead, and Chinook were exposed for 24 h to untreated urban runoff and then transferred to clean water for 48 h. As anticipated from previous studies, coho were highly susceptible to runoff toxicity, with cumulative mortality rates ranging from 92%-100% across the three storms. By contrast, juvenile sockeye were unaffected (100% survival), and cumulative mortality rates were intermediate for steelhead (4%-42%) and Chinook (0%-13%). Furthermore, coho died rapidly following the onset of stormwater exposure (generally <4 h), whereas mortality in Chinook and steelhead was delayed by 1-2 days. Similar to previous findings for coho, steelhead and Chinook did not recover when transferred to clean water. Lastly, significant mortality occurred in coho even when roadway runoff was diluted by 95% in clean water. Our findings extend the urban runoff mortality syndrome in salmonids and point to a near-term need for sublethal studies in steelhead and Chinook to more precisely understand stormwater risks to threatened species recovery efforts in the western United States.

Development and Validation of Written Exam Items for the Agricultural Hazardous Occupations Orders (AgHOs) Certification Training Program.

Research was conducted to develop and validate a pool of exam items that can be used to test the readiness of youth, ages 14-15 years, to be certified under the current federally mandated Agricultural Hazardous Occupations Orders (AgHOs). The AgHOs require training prior to employment in agricultural workplaces that the Secretary of Labor has determined are especially hazardous for youth within the prescribed age range. Under the current provisions of the AgHOs certification process, non-exempt youth seeking employment in agriculture are required to pass a written exam concentrating on safe work practices as partial satisfaction to receive certification of eligibility for employment to perform certain tasks. However, the regulations provide little guidance concerning the format of the exam, subject matter to be covered, degree of difficulty, or minimum passing score. As part of the USDA-sponsored Hazardous Occupations Safety Training in Agriculture (HOSTA) initiative, efforts have been made to develop consistent and evidence-based testing methods for disseminating the test protocols to instructors. The goal was to expand, enhance, and maintain the reliability of the exam item pool for the AgHOs certification process. Item development was based on the HOSTA-supported Gearing Up for Safety: Production Agriculture Safety Training for Youth curriculum. To ensure adequate item availability, the current item pool was expanded to include a minimum of two test items for each of the 157 cognitive-based core competencies developed as part of the Gearing Up curriculum design process. Administering 70-item exams that were generated from the item pool to 568 youth, ages 13-18 years, provided evidence of item validity. The result was a pool of 367 validated exam items.

Content validation using an expert panel: assessment process for assistive technology adopted by farmers with disabilities.

This article reports the use of an expert panel to perform content validation of an experimental assessment process for the safety of assistive technology (AT) adopted by farmers with disabilities. The validation process was conducted by a panel of six experts experienced in the subject matter, i.e., design, use, and assessment of AT for farmers with disabilities. The exercise included an evaluation session and two focus group sessions. The evaluation session consisted of using the assessment process under consideration by the panel to evaluate a set of nine ATs fabricated by a farmer on his farm site. The expert panel also participated in the focus group sessions conducted immediately before and after the evaluation session. The resulting data were analyzed using discursive analysis, and the results were incorporated into the final assessment process. The method and the results are presented with recommendations for the use of expert panels in research projects and validation of assessment tools.

Proposed performance standards for the Agricultural Hazardous Occupations Order certification training program.

The performance standards that accompany Gearing Up for Safety, the agricultural production safety training curriculum for youth, were designed to meet the certification testing requirements of the Agricultural Hazardous Occupations Order (AgHOs) certification training program. The AgHOs requires that certain youth who are older than 13 and younger than 16 years of age complete a prescribed training program before being eligible for employment on farms to perform certain tasks considered hazardous. These training resources will be available for implementation and can be accessed by contacting the second author. To our knowledge, up until this time, few, if any, standardized testing procedures or instruments have had the necessary psychometric evidence to support use of the resulting scores to assess the readiness of youth to meet the basic certification requirements contained in the AgHOs. This article describes the rationale, methods, and key findings from a standard-setting session held to establish minimum passing scores for a proposed testing process. The test will be used as a component of the Gearing Up for Safety certification process for youth workers seeking employment to perform job functions as specified under the AgHOs. Readers may be able to apply this standardized testing process, or similarly accepted processes, to other or future testing and certification projects involving agricultural safety and health.