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Asbestos News: February, 2008
In a recent lawsuit, the federal government is alleging that officials of the Ohio State Department of Corrections lied about asbestos abatement and removal at Chillicothe Correctional Institution, despite claims that the state has spent nearly $376,000 over the past three years in dealing with the health hazard.
In this day and age in which the federal government is determined to sell and outsource everything to private corporate interests–including foreign interests –those corporations who gleefully move in to gobble up their piece of the U.S.A. had better be careful, or they might wind up with a bad case of indigestion.
As members of Congress engage in “immediate discussion” over how best to deal with the nation’s problems, individual communities across the nation are taking matters into their own hands, which as Martha Stewart might say, is “a good thing.”
In the medieval Catholic Church, indulgences were a way for sinners to literally buy forgiveness of sins. A dissident German monk named Martin Luther was very critical of the practice, considering it to be more of a commercial transaction than a real change of heart on the part of the sinner–an issue that he made very clear in his “Ninety-Five Theses.” That document sparked the Protestant Reformation, literally changing the course of history.
Regular readers are already ware that the fight to ban all forms of asbestos in the United States has been going on for a long time–and despite the efforts of U.S. Senator Patty Murray of Washington State, the battle is a long way from over.
During an intense cold snap in Michigan during the last week of January, asbestos contamination was discovered in an aging General Motors facility in the town of Wyoming. The frigid temperatures and high winds caused window caulking to become brittle, after which it began to flake off of window frames located in the stamping plant’s tool-and-die area.
So… you want to go on doing what you’re doing, despite the hazards to yourself and your neighbors?
Fine. In this case, of $6,358.
William Kostela of Athena, Oregon, had been warned, of course, but according to Tom Hack of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), “he apparently did not get the message.”
You may recall a recent story about the couple who invested $38 million in the restoration of an historic Spokane, Washington landmark–the Davenport Hotel. A good chunk of that $38 million was spent on the removal of the asbestos that ironically saved the building from the wrecker’s ball a few years earlier.
Asbestos abatement is not a cheap process–but it’s even more expensive to cut corners, as many contractors across the country (a good number of whom you have read about here at Asbestos.net) have discovered.
Bob Knapp is learning this lesson the hard way.
Regular readers may recall that the Canadian government, so admirable for its advanced and progressive social policies otherwise, has taken a misguided and harmful position in its protection and endorsement of its domestic asbestos industry. Canada is one of the last two nations on the planet (Russia is the other one) in which companies active in the production of asbestos are allowed to operate and market their product, most of which is exported to developing nations.
Welcome to the former “judicial hellhole” of Madison County, Illinois.
Like Kanawha County in West Virginia, Madison County is a jurisdiction in which asbestos plaintiffs have traditionally had a better chance of winning their cases against corporate criminals. It is small wonder that so many asbestos suits are filed in this court. Although the courts in Madison County are moving to discourage such “forum shopping,” the law allows anyone from any state to sue anyone or any entity in any other state–provided that at least one of the parties has some connection (however tenuous) to the state in which the case is to be heard.
Aside from the fact that asbestos was used in virtually every part of building construction prior to 1980, the fact that the production of potato chips involves the use of deep-fat fryers operating at high temperatures should make the recent discovery at a plant in Jackson, Tennessee, no surprise.
Despite repeated attempts by the English over the past 800 years to subdue and dominate their fierce Celtic neighbors to the north, Scotland has often gotten the upper hand. Aside from the fact that at least one Scottish King sat on the English throne, Scottish armies since the Battle of Bannockburn have driven the Sassunach (”Saxons”) from the field more often than not.
Regular readers may recall the story of L. Tersigni Consulting, a Connecticut firm that offers advice to large corporate clients facing asbestos liability and lawsuits. The firm allegedly overcharged its clients to the tune of millions of dollars, and as of last summer, was under a Justice Department investigation. Strangely, the bankruptcy judge who approved payments to L. Tersigni Consulting was not informed of this investigation. The reason given by federal prosecutors was that the investigators on the case had given instructions not to discuss the case.
Some might call it karma.
In addition to its history of racist apartheid policies, South Africa once had a thriving asbestos industry; in fact, one type of deadly amphibole asbestos, known as amosite, was named for the company that mined the substance (Asbestos Mines Of South Africa). It was the study of South African asbestos miners during the late 1950s and early 1960s that helped medical researchers to identify mesothelioma as a disease distinct from lung cancer and establish asbestos exposure as the sole cause.
A judge in a San Diego, California, court has ordered a new trial in the case of a San Diego utility convicted of several asbestos violations–despite protests from U.S. prosecutors and one utility’s former contractors.
On the eve of the First World War, the Pacific Northwest was still largely a hinterland, cut off from the rest of the world by formidable geographic barriers. However, the recent arrival of the railroads had been bringing industry, investment, and people; the rich land provided food and raw materials in abundance. The Great Northwest was about to step onto the world stage.
One of the most bizarre and twisted asbestos-related cases in New York history is finally winding up in a Cayuga County court.
Frozen and bursting water pipes are not unusual during the harsh winters on the edge of the Great Plains near the Rocky Mountain foothills. When the mercury falls below zero for days on end–as was the case recently–it is almost an endemic problem.
Those who have spent any time at all reading the content here at Asbestos.net understand that dealing with asbestos waste and contamination is highly complex, highly regulated, extremely hazardous–and very expensive. In order to be certified, those who undertake this unpleasant but necessary task must undergo many hours of training, wear specific protective gear, and follow what often seem like rigid procedures.
Peak oil, $100-a-barrel oil, and global warming are all signs that the Indian-built Nano, a “micro-car” that may be the smallest, most economical form of private, personal, motorized transportation in the world is a vehicle for which the time has come.
Friday, we brought you a story of an asbestos problem in a Colorado high school–just the latest in a long series of such stories about school buildings across the nation.
Get ready for yet another one.
According to the high school principal in the small Colorado community of Broomfield, a northern suburb of Denver, the excuse that school officials “don’t know whether students were exposed” is “not acceptable or in line with district policy.”
Regular readers of this news feature know that asbestos exposure is yet another hazard faced by fire fighters in the line of duty.
It shouldn’t happen in a routine training exercise.
Even highly affluent communities such as Aspen, Colorado, are not immune.
There have been many stories about asbestos problems in our nation’s schools here at Asbestos.net, sometimes as many as three a week. Most of these schools have been in impoverished inner cities and rural towns, or working and middle-class communities.
The small town of Libby, Montana, has been referred to by investigative reporter Michael Bowker as “Ground Zero” in the asbestos wars. The story of this town’s tragedy has been thoroughly documented in Bowker’s book Fatal Deception, which was in turn inspired by a series of articles by Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Andrew Schneider over seven years ago.
Despite the fact that Libby and the nearby town of Troy–which was similarly affected–have been in the national spotlight and have inspired a valiant attempt by a senator from nearby Washington State to pass anti-asbestos legislation, it appears that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been dragging its heels when it comes to the cleanup.
Why?
Regular readers may recall a recent article about the first case of asbestos litigation in South Korea–a country where, as virtually everywhere else in the world, asbestos has been used in almost everything. Unlike the rest of the world however, asbestos issues have not been apparent here–until now.
On 10 December 2007, a 27-year-old man named Jason Reza Mohammed was behind the wheel of a 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, traveling down Hacienda Road in the small southern California town of La Habra, about five miles southeast of the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier.
According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department report, Mr. Mohammed suddenly and unexpectedly suffered from an epileptic seizure. He lost control of the vehicle, and it went careening into City Hall and into the city council chambers.
That was just the start of the problems.
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