Professional Background
Environmental health and safety, industrial hygiene, and forensic and expert work. In the field since 1989; in independent practice since 2005.
The work
My practice runs through McNeil Safety Consulting, which I have operated on my own since roughly 2005. The work divides into four kinds.
Industrial hygiene. Exposure monitoring and assessment — silica, lead, noise, respirable dust, metals, diesel particulate, solvents — and the ventilation, respiratory protection and hearing conservation programs that follow from the results.
Regulatory compliance and defense. Written programs, injury and illness prevention programs, health and safety plans, hazardous materials business plans, and representation of employers through Cal/OSHA citations and appeals.
Environmental and emergency work. Stormwater pollution prevention plan preparation and compliance inspection, environmental and property assessment, post-fire indoor environmental assessment, clandestine drug laboratory decontamination planning, and emergency planning.
Forensic and expert work. I am retained by counsel in workplace injury and fatality matters — machine guarding and lockout, falls, powered equipment, excavation, multi-employer worksites and exposure cases. The work is site inspection, document review, written findings and testimony.
Sectors
Construction and engineering-procurement-construction, manufacturing, healthcare, film and television production, oil and gas, battery energy storage and utility-scale solar, and mining above and below ground.
Utility-scale energy
Corporate environmental and EHS work on battery energy storage and solar generation projects in California, Washington, Colorado and New Mexico, on the construction and commissioning side. The employer and the projects are not named. Programs written as an employee belong to that employer, and I do not publish a client list built out of other people’s work product.
Where I work
California is home. I also work across the Western states — Montana, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota and South Dakota — on federal qualifications that carry across state lines and twenty-five years of working under other states’ rules.
Writing and peer review
Contributor to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and reviewer for the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Michael Karl McNeil 