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An American waste management company, ARI Technology of Kent, Washington, has announced a licensing agreement with a leading asbestos abatement and removal concern in the United Kingdom, Pectel Group. ARI has developed and patented a technology to destroy asbestos fibers (among other types of dangerous waste), making their disposal considerably safer and less expensive.

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In a typical news story about a risk of asbestos exposure closing a public facility, the risk is posed by an industrial process or contamination of building supplies. This story is a little different – the area closed is a 48-square mile region of central California’s Clear Creek Management Area, and the asbestos risk is posed by the soil itself.

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral, but despite its toxicity, environmental asbestos generally poses little or no risk simply because its concentration in the environment is generally very diffuse. Areas like a 31,000-acre segment of the Clear Creek area are different, however – the area is the home of the largest single asbestos deposit on US soil, and is the former site of the Atlas asbestos mine. For years, Bureau of Land Management officials have warned off-roaders, hikers, backpackers, and other visitors to the wildly beautiful region that the area might pose a risk to human health. A recent study, however, indicated that the risk was far greater than had been previously believed, and that as few as five visits to the area could raise lifetime lung cancer risks to those found in workers exposed to industrial-level quantities of asbestos fibers.

For the past three years, the affected area of Clear Creek has been closed during the summer months, the time of greatest dust exposure, while officials from the Environmental Protection Agency conducted an extensive study of the health risks posed by the asbestos. Officials from BLM and the EPA said that dust being added to the air from the more than 35,000 annual visitors – many of whom were off-roaders driving motorcycles and SUVs through the region’s canyons – is a significant reason for the permanent closure.

EPA technicians visited the area and engaged in recreational uses typical of visitors to Clear Creek, collecting dust samples with portable pumps at various times of the year. They found chrysotile, tremolite, and actinolite forms of asbestos in concentrations that would be typical for an industrial environment where asbestos was processed or used. Their results were compiled in to a 160-page study which was released in spring of 2008. BLM announced the temporary closure of the 31,000 acres affected by asbestos contamination shortly thereafter.

Clear Creek’s remaining 44,000 acres remain open to the public.

Sources:

“Asbestos Risk Closes Central California’s Clear Creek Area “, Environment News Service, 1 May 2008

“Clear Creek off-roader paradise lost due to asbestos”, Los Angeles Times, 2 May 2008

South African Minister for Environmental Affairs and Tourism Martinus van Schalkwyk announced on March 28, 2008, that South Africa will ban the use, manufacture, or processing of asbestos, effective immediately. The government will allow a grace period of 120 days for merchants or industrial concerns using asbestos to clear their stocks.

The prohibition bars the import or export of any asbestos, or any product containing asbestos. It does allow the importation of asbestos or asbestos-containing products from other members of the Southern African Development Community, and does permit the use of asbestos in research applications. Manufacturers can also apply for exemptions to the ban if they can demonstrate that no suitable alternative to asbestos products exists.

Some 50 countries around the world prohibit the use of asbestos, because the fibrous mineral has been conclusively linked to the development of respiratory diseases including asbestosis, lung cancer, and malignant mesothelioma. South Africa was formerly a major producer of asbestos, and was the fifth largest producer of chrysotile asbestos, as well as producing 100% of the amosite asbestos and 97% of the crocidolite asbestos used worldwide.

Asbestos has long been banned in most industrialized countries, with the United States having a partial ban in place and most European countries banning asbestos outright. Pressure has grown in the developing world for similar bans, as the deadly nature of asbestos-related diseases becomes more widely understood.

In early May of 2008, the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC), a major labor union in the Pacific island nation of 28 million people, launched a petition drive demanding that the government ban the use of asbestos in construction and manufacturing by the year 2010. MTUC secretary-general G. Rajasekaran decried his country’s approach of regulating the use of asbestos, saying “ Malaysia till now has only came up with regulations on the safe use of asbestos, but that is not enough. In fact, there is no such thing as safe asbestos.” Asbestos is used widely in the Malaysian construction industry and among manufacturers because of its tensile strength, acoustic properties, and resistance to heat and corrosion.

Sources:

“MTUC wants use of asbestos banned by 2010”, BorneoPost online, 29 April 2008

“SA bans all use of asbestos“, SouthAfrica.info, 28 March 2008

After a discovery of blue asbestos (also known as crocidolite) contaminating the Freewinds, a 40-year old cruise ship owned by the Church of Scientology, the ship has been sealed and cordoned off by government officials in Curacao. Dock workers conducting routine repairs discovered the presence of the deadly mineral while conducting routine drydock repairs and renovations.

The Freewinds was docked in Ostrobanda, Curacao during April of 2008 in order to undergo the maintenance work. When dockworkers from the Curacao Drydock Company (CDM) found the crocidolite, they reported it to government officials and after an urgent meeting, the ministers sealed the ship and announced their action to the public to forestall panic among the alarmed maintenance workers. The workers have allegedly reported finding extensive contamination on the ship, and that further, the captain of the Freewinds attempted to conceal an asbestos release incident aboard ship, declining to inform crew members that a maintenance crew had accidentally dislodged significant quantities of asbestos-bearing dust into the ship’s ventilation system.

There have been previous reports of asbestos trouble aboard the Freewinds, including a 2001 affidavit filed by a former Scientologist who worked as a naval architect conducting renovations aboard the Freewinds in 1987. During those refits, the architect says he discovered crocidolite in the engine room and throughout the ship. Ships built prior to the late 1970s almost always used asbestos extensively as insulation, wrapping for pipes, and in ship fittings, as the mineral is fireproof and highly resistant to the corrosion endemic to ships at sea. The architect, Lawrence Woodcraft, also alleged that he informed the Scientology organization of his findings but that his concerns were ignored. Shipboard uses of asbestos, like its use in land-based industries, has been conclusively linked to lung cancer, asbestosis, malignant mesothelioma, and other health problems and diseases.

The Freewinds has been used as a mobile office, training base, and event center by the Scientologists since 1987, and thousands of passengers are known to have traveled aboard the asbestos-laden vessel. Asbestos abatement experts have opined that it will cost tens of millions of dollars to remove the asbestos from the Freewinds and bring her up to modern safety standards, an expense considerably in excess of the ship’s estimated market value. No comment has been made by the Church of Scientology or its controversial SeaOrg naval branch as to the expected disposition of the Freewinds.

Sources:

Radaronline.com, “Cancer on the Lido Deck: Scientology Cruise Ship Rife with Asbestos?”

lermanet.com, expiosing the con, “Declaration of Freewinds’ architect, Lawrence Woodcraft”

insurancenews.net,”Curacao Dry dock Company: Scientology’s Cruise Ship Sealed Due To Asbestos Danger “

On Monday, April 28, 2008 , parents at the North Kossuth Elementary School in Bancroft , Iowa , were alarmed by an announcement that the school would be closing due to asbestos contamination. The news, which was widely reported in local radio, television and print media, followed an air quality test that showed asbestos fiber levels up to 1,000 times the safe level in one hallway, and 10 times the safe levels in one classroom.

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In virtually every city across the U.S. at least one building constructed prior to the 1980s is being remodeled or demolished at any given time. And as readers of Asbestos.net know, all too often the people involved in these projects attempt to cut corners where asbestos is concerned, usually costing them more in the long run.

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What W.R. Grace did to Libby, Montana, James Hardie Industries did to workers all over Australia. The government of New South Wales secured a deal with Hardie to pay out some $4 billion (AUD) in compensation for asbestos in that state over the next four decades.

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