The owners of a power plant along Lake Michigan are sifting through giant piles of sand in search of toxic asbestos that threatens the waters of one of America’s Great Lakes and the beaches that line the lake.

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Midwest Generation Power Company has obtained a permit from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to sift through about 15,000 cubic yards of sand, dredged over the past several years from a nearby canal that draws lake water to cool the company’s coal-fired plant.

The utility company is testing to see whether asbestos can be removed from the sand so that it can be sold to road builders, a spokesman from Midwest Generation said.

But EPA officials worried that the sifting would cause asbestos fibers to make their way into neighboring communities. They ordered the company to cover the area with a tent and bring in fans that filter the air, which is then tested several times daily.

The move by Midwest Generation is being done in an attempt to stop asbestos contamination on Illinois State beaches. It comes on the heels of a report by environmental experts, which says the toxic mineral is a health hazard to those who use the beaches on a regular basis. Local politicians deny there is a problem.

The sand pile at Midwest Generation was no doubt contaminated by material from the former Johns-Manville factory, which manufactured asbestos shingles and pipe at the location for more than 60 years.

“We’re looking for ways to remove this sand from the property without taking it to a landfill,” said Charlie Parnell, a spokesman for Midwest Generation, which bought the Waukegan plant from ComEd in 1999. “This is a problem that affects a lot of people, not just us.”

The testing began last month but the public was not notified, explains the article, because this is only a test to see if the sifting will work. If it does and Midwest Generation continues with the project, the community will be given notice.

Libby, Montana’s Center for Asbestos-Related Diseases, also known as the CARD Clinic, is in serious need of money and one U.S. Senator says he’s going to help them find the funds that will keep them from going under.

An article in The Western News reports that Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont) vowed to do everything he possibly can to save the clinic, which serves the ever-growing number of Libby-area residents stricken with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases, such as asbestosis.

“We’re going to get in contact with the people who are the decision-makers in the EPA and try to apply pressure from my position to get them to break loose with some money for the work that these guys are doing,” Tester said. “It’s valuable work. I think it’s critically important to the community and the cleanup and health of the citizenry so I just need to push them and plead the case and hopefully, they’ll do the right thing in the end.”

Dr. Brad Black, CARD director, doesn’t think the clinic will close but admits that it takes time to get money coming through certain channels. Things sometimes get caught up in red tape, he notes.

“I think there are monies that flow that are coming to CARD in the bureaucratic process and it takes time to get through,” Black said.

Tester disagrees and fears CARD’s demise. “I absolutely think so,” Tester said when asked if he thinks the clinic could close. “I was here a year ago or so and it’s definitely gotten worse since then. I think that’s absolutely a reality and hopefully it’s a reality that won’t come to fruition.”

Dr. Black admits that the clinic’s health care fee for service has dropped off over the past several years and that a $248,000 appropriation is currently stuck in the processing phase, making money tight.

Mesothelioma victim Marvin Penn, age 71, and his wife Josephine can breathe a bit easier now after winning a $16.25 million settlement in an asbestos suit against a dental supply company.

According to a press release published in Market Watch, Penn’s case is believed to be the first successful asbestos verdict against a dental supply company. Penn had come in contact with dental products manufactured by Kerr Corporation more than forty years ago. Kerr was the sole defendant in the case and the company to which the jury assigned 20 percent of the liability for Penn’s illness.

“The jury believed Mr. Penn and did not believe Kerr’s defense that the product it distributed did not release harmful asbestos dust, and that Kerr could not have known at the time that it was dangerous,” said Penn’s attorney.

Though Penn was employed as a mail carrier for more than thirty years, in the 1960s he attended dental technician school, considering a change in career. It was there that he was exposed to asbestos while making castings by carving wax replicas of teeth using asbestos-containing dental tape, the press release notes.

The jury also placed 20 percent liability on another dental supply company, Dentsply Corp, f/k/a Randsom & Randolf, which settled before the verdict. Another 20 percent liability went to Todd Shipyards, where Penn’s father was employed as a steamfitter and brought asbestos dust home on his clothes daily.

Penn also testified that he was employed in a postal facility across from the former location of the World Trade Center while it was being sprayed with asbestos. The jury decided the spray accounted for the other 40 percent liability.

Parents at a Kentuckiana (Ky.) elementary school say conditions at the facility are “unacceptable” due to the presence of asbestos and other toxins.

According to a WHAS – Channel 11 news story, parents say Taylor County Elementary School is filled with asbestos, mold, and mildew, and their kids are paying the price with their health.

“Currently, my son has the sniffles, the coughs, the sore throat,” said parent Kim Lawson, noting that this only happens to her son only when he attends school at Taylor County Elementary. Another parent cited similar symptoms.

“When’s she’s out of school, she’s okay. But when she goes back to school, it starts back on day one,” says one parent who wished to remain anonymous.

“When you see green slime on the walls… it’s mold. And when you see black mold behind the file cabinets, you know there’s a problem,” said Lawson, who also noted fears about exposed asbestos in the classrooms.

“At the beginning of the year they paint over the mold. And by the end of the year, it’s eating through the paint,” said the anonymous parent. “I want to know why every classroom has an air purifier in it and why the teachers are sick all the time.”

Both asbestos and mold can cause severe respiratory problems. Asbestos diseases like mesothelioma can also surface up to 50 years after exposure, so it’s impossible to know what kind of affect the conditions may have on the students, staff, and faculty at Taylor County Elementary.

A man from Worcester, Mass. is being fined in excess of $50,000 for allegedly tearing down a building covered with asbestos shingles without regard for the safety of his workers and for the public in general.

According to an article in the Worcester Telegram, the fine against Robert T. Peltier was announced late last week. Peltier is the owner of a property on Sutton Lane that was demolished more than two years ago. At that time, Peltier failed to properly remove asbestos before demolition.

“The laws are very specific that if you have asbestos-containing materials in a building, in this case in the shingles, you have to handle them with care, because asbestos is a cancer-causing material,” said state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) spokesman Edmund Coletta.

“The shingles are broken up by demolition or being dropped on the ground and put asbestos fibers into the ambient air around the site,” Coletta said. “The workers could breathe them in, and they could travel from the site as well and affect others.”

An anonymous tip alerted the DEP to the asbestos problem, the article notes. After inspecting the property, officials determined Peltier violated state asbestos regulations by “failing to notify the agency of the demolition, failing to remove asbestos materials prior to demolition, failing to seal the work area, failing to filter the air in the work area and failing to properly handle asbestos materials,” the article said.

In addition, asbestos debris was found buried on the property, DEP inspectors noted. A licensed asbestos contractor was eventually hired to remediate the problem.

Residents who live near the 120-year-old Ithaca (NY) Gun Factory were briefed on plans to clean up the site, which still contains large amounts of asbestos, lead, and chlorinated solvents, including trichloroethylene, despite previous cleanup efforts.

On Wednesday, the company charged with the demolition – Bianchi Industrial Services of Syracuse – told concerned citizens that they expect to start demolition by mid-September, notes an article in the Ithaca Journal. The demolition will make way for 33 high-end condominiums built by local developer Travis Frost.

The former factory, which first opened in 1880 and once manufactured shotguns and rifles, is contaminated with lead and asbestos. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) previously spent $4.8 million on a cleanup effort in several areas around the factory but some heavily contaminated areas still remain.

Friable — or easily crushable — asbestos will be removed first from buildings where it can be safely accessed, Dave Bianchi, president of the demolition company, said.

“Results of air monitoring will be e-mailed daily to the Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Conservation, and there will be weekly reports to the city,” added Peter E. Grevelding, senior vice president of O’Brien and Gere of East Syracuse, the engineering firm being used for the project.

Runoff water, Bianchi said, will be tested on a regular basis as will piles of brick and concrete from the now-defunct factory to be sure asbestos and lead levels are acceptable.

A panel of scientists who reviewed and studied the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to change the way it determines the health risk from exposure to asbestos told the agency that it’s not time to alter the parameters surrounding the dangerous mineral. The decision came as a surprise to many EPA officials and delivered a blow to those who would have been aided by the change.

According to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, many of those who rallied for the change in asbestos exposure guidelines have used or still market asbestos-containing products or material and already face myriad personal injury suits. The Bush administration was also in favor of the changes, the article notes.

“The EPA’s plan was to change the determination of how the toxicity of the six types of asbestos regulated by government differ in danger,” the article points out. “In doing so, the agency would ignore decades worth of what are considered solid studies documenting the actual hazard of the most common type of asbestos — chrysotile.”

Top scientists, doctor, and asbestos victim advocates gathered to testify against any EPA-proposed changes at hearings held in mid July. They got the attention of the 20 experts appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board’s asbestos panel and, for now, the way the agency estimates potential cancer risk to those who inhale fibers of asbestos will remain the same, though the EPA is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisory scientists.

A Connecticut school district must change the way it deals with asbestos, the state Department of Health ordered earlier this week.

According to an article in the News-Times, the Brookfield School District must now follow specific procedures to address the presence of asbestos and faces the threat of a $23,000 fine for failing to follow the new compliance order. Parents were relieved when the Department of Health stepped in, fearing that the district was ignoring asbestos guidelines and exposing students to the dangerous mineral.

“This is a small measure of justice,” said Kerry Swift, one of the parents who pushed for state health officials to investigate the district’s handling of asbestos. She and other parents have been fighting the district for eight years about the way they handle old asbestos-containing floor tiles and roofing materials.

However, the district denies any wrongdoing. Brookfield school board vice chair Wayne D’Oria told the media that “we are going to make sure our students and staff are safe.”

“What we as a school board are happy about is that we have no problem doing any of those things on the order, and we don’t think we were in violation,” he added.

But Department of Public Health spokesman Scott Szalkiewicz says Brookfield has a history of non-compliance, dating all the way back to 2005. The DPH official said his department issued nine notices of non-compliance regarding asbestos in 2005, including one in Brookfield. In 2006, it issued five notices, including one in Brookfield. In 2007, it issued six notices and has issued five so far this year.

Swift and other parents were hoping for more than a consent order. They expected that criminal charges may have been filed.

“It could be 50 years before we see the full ramifications of what happened here,” because it can take that long for asbestos to cause health problems,” she stated.

A worker at a landfill in Alaska says he and three of his coworkers were exposed to asbestos last winter when a bulldozer he was operating at the location ripped open numerous bags of the hazardous waste, allowing dust to become airborne.

The temporary worker at the Matanuska-Susitna Borough’s central landfill, Ray Rossiter, brought the incident to the attention of landfill management after it happened but told the Anchorage Daily News that it was only recently that officials acknowledged the event actually took place.

“We’re looking into the matter,” said the borough’s interim human resources manager, Marshall Watson.
“We’re looking into the entire procedures at the landfill. We’re going to interview employees who were there when the alleged exposure took place,” he said, noting that the investigation is still in its early stages. He added that he is unsure as to when the investigation will be complete and whether others will be called in to investigate the event.

Rossiter, age 58, filed an injury report with the Department of Labor and Workforce Development which stated that he and the other employees were exposed when the dozer he was driving to move rebar and concrete tore into bags holding the dust. The report states that the bulldozer was in bad repair and the dust was allowed to enter the cab.

“My lungs still burn,” he said, adding that he suffers from fatigue, which he believes is caused by the exposure.

“Anything Ray was working with does not present a health threat,” stressed Greg Goodale, manager of the borough’s Solid Waste Division. He adds that the asbestos in the bags in question was not of the friable variety and would not have become airborne. Special procedures are in place to handle friable asbestos, Goodale noted.

A group of suburban Philadelphia residents who live near a toxic superfund site covered with asbestos says the EPA violated its own guidelines by commencing with clean up in the area without notifying residents of the work.

An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer notes that the BoRit Citizens Advisory Group, a 26-person organization of concerned residents who live near the site in Ambler, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb, was angry when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleared brush and smoothed part of the land into an access road for later work on creek banks. The 38-acre BoRit site has long been covered with industrial fragments of asbestos which were discarded in heaps until the 1960s, the article points out.

“I believe that action was a hazard,” said Sharon McCormick, cofounder of the group, which was created to give the EPA feedback on matters involving the site. “This is really a serious problem. This is really serious stuff.”

Eduardo Rovira Jr., BoRit on-site coordinator for the EPA, said the co-chairs of the advisory group received notification by email and that it was their responsibility to notify others in the community of the cleanup actions.

Co-chair Robert Adams claims he received no such email and says he only remembers an off-hand remark by Rovira saying that work may start soon. No further details were given, Adams says.
The EPA maintains that the public was safe because air testing conducted on the days in question identified only one asbestos fiber that had migrated from the site. “All other results…were non-detect for asbestos,” Rovira said.

Residents also worried about workmen at the site who didn’t wear haz-mat suits while performing their duties. The EPA said they were fine without them but later reversed their stance on the subject.
“To be on the safe side, we have decided that during field activities, any contractor working inside the fence will wear Level C [hard hat, Tyvek suits, safety shoes and respirator],” Rovira said on the EPA’s BoRit web site.

The site was first owned by a company that made milk of magnesia. Records show that between 1933 and the late 60s, a series of manufacturers dumped industrial slurry and asbestos pipe, tile and shingles at the location. By the 1980s, the area had been deemed a “public health hazard.”