The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that they recently completed activity-based asbestos sampling work at the South Bay Asbestos Superfund Site in Alviso, California, in the San Francisco Bay area. We are sampling in order to determine if there is any potential for significant exposure to asbestos from normal dust-generating activities, such as driving a vehicle or bicycling, said Eric Yunker, the EPA project manager for the site.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that “the testing is rekindling memories of 24 years ago, when asbestos was first found in levees, parking lots and former dump sites in the small, largely Latino community on the city’s northern edges. The discovery eventually led the EPA to declare all of Alviso a federal Superfund site in 1986. Though the EPA reports that most of the clean-up was completed by 1993, the tests conducted last week were done with modern equipment that is more sensitive and can measure asbestos levels more accurately. The EPA also notes that if persistent levels of asbestos are found in the air, the tests could “trigger years of new cleanup efforts.

Instead of taking soil samples as in the past or sampling air from stationary monitors, explains the newspaper account, EPA crews rode ATVs, raked dirt, ran on sports fields behind George Mayne Elementary School, and rode bicycles, all while wearing sensitive measuring devices. “Well be basically kicking up dust that’s found in town,” Yunker said last week. “We aren’t introducing or concentrating materials that aren’t already here. We won’t be doing anything that increases health risk.”
“We’re here to confirm that the clean-up activities we did are still protective of public health,” Yunker stressed.

Deutsche Bank Employee Says Boss Said to Asbestos Gear

August 27th, 2007

A former Deutsche Bank building asbestos worker told the New York Daily News that she quit her job at the site near the former World Trade Center because her boss berated her for wearing an asbestos mask to protect herself. Helen Rocos claims that she and other employees who were chosen to search for bone fragments amid rubble on the top of the building were assured that the roof had already been cleaned of asbestos. So, she says, they sifted through the rubble in ordinary clothes without benefit of respirators or other standard-issue asbestos gear.

“They told us they got rid of the asbestos, but as I’m digging, I’m thinking, ‘How did they magically get rid of the asbestos, but still leave all this healthy dirt behind?’” said Rocos, 57, a tough-talking certified asbestos handler with haz-mat training. Rocos claims that after working at the site for several hours during the first morning of the job, she came back after lunch with an asbestos mask on her face. She describes her boss as “furious.

“He yelled, ‘Helen! Take that mask off your face! You are spooking everybody, spooking the people from the medical examiner’s office!’” Rocos recalled. “I said, ‘No!’ I said I doubted they could clean the asbestos on the roof and leave all this other dirt untouched. You had people picking through the dirt for bones, then getting up and eating a Dunkin’ Donut, licking their fingers,” she said. “It was insane.”

Her supervisor at Bovis Lend Lease then referred to her as aloudmouth and troublemaker in front of her fellow employees and suggested she switch to a cloth mask rather than a respirator. Rocos claims other working conditions were substandard as well, including the lack of running water, which made it impossible to wash up before lunch, and the lack of working toilets. She says the mask incident was the last straw, so she quit.

Shortly after Rocos quit, the Environmental Protection Agency suspended the search for bone fragments because the roof was “not properly cleaned” and asbestos particles were discovered in the dust, officials said.

Judge Trying to End Stalemate in WR Grace Asbestos Case

August 24th, 2007

An article in the Washington Post reports that a bankruptcy judge on Thursday cut off W.R. Graces exclusive control of the bankruptcy case, opening up the possibility of competing Chapter 11 proposals for the specialty chemical conglomerate. According to the article, Judge Judith Fitzgerald of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., granted a motion by lawyers for asbestos claimants, who have been unable to reach an agreement with company. The Columbia, Md.-based company has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since 2001 and faces myriad asbestos exposure claims.

“Termination of exclusivity will facilitate moving the case toward conclusion by changing the dynamics for negotiation while permitting (Grace) to continue to operate their business, resolve claims and participate in negotiations,” the judge wrote.

W.R. Grace reports that it has already spent in excess of $23 million during the second quarter of 2007 for legal defense in the federal case against 7 Grace executives who are accused of failure to warn employees of the risks of working at Graces various facilities, where hundreds were exposed to asbestos on a daily basis. Many of these employees have filed lawsuits as have scores of people who live in the communities surrounding Graces vermiculite mines and Zonolite plants, who were also affected by the inhalation of asbestos fibers that permeated the air.

Virginia Apartment Complex Evacuated Due to Asbestos

August 21st, 2007

Four buildings at the Oyster Point Place Apartments in Newport News, Virginia have been evacuated after apartment owners discovered they were contaminated with asbestos. A story on WWEC-TV stated that tenants in all four buildings in question “found a letter hanging from their doorknobs Thursday that told them their walls and ventilation systems were clogged with asbestos, a known cancer-causing agent. There was no knock on the door, like, Hey we need to talk about this, recalled Twane Shelton, who has only lived at Oyster Point for three weeks. It was very, very, very sneaky. Shelton and his roommate say they arent very surprised at the turn of events. They say management placed them into a filthy apartment when they moved in on July 10th.

An inspection of the complex by the TV station revealed an unlocked apartment downstairs where they found plastic sheeting and asbestos warning signs just feet away from the rooms Shelton and his roommate Ryan Spiker call home. The young men say they believe they were duped into moving into an unhealthy building and complex. If they know about it now, they knew about it before, said Spiker. It’s not right we weren’t warned about this before we moved in here. Spiker and Shelton say they scrimped to gather enough cash to move into Oyster Point Place and now don’t have enough to live elsewhere.We’re gonna be homeless, you know, said Spiker. Management at Oyster Point Place said they had no comment about the situation.