After an extraordinarily long wait — 45 years, to be exact — the government is finally ramping up protections for workers from a carcinogen we’ve been aware of for centuries. The reform marks the most significant change in workplace health law during the Obama era, and officials project it will prevent 600 deaths per year.

On Thursday, the Labor Department announced that it will be implementing what’s known as the Silica Rule, bringing a decades-long lobbying fight in Washington to an end. Crystalline silica is a dust that comes from sand and granite, and it has been debilitating lungs for as long as workers have been cutting rock, brick and concrete. Under the new rule, the feds will be vastly lowering the amount of silica dust that companies can legally expose workers to.

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