Articles Posted in Asbestos Exposure

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This past summer, school officials in Teaticket were told that workers installing new air conditioning vents discovered what they believed to be asbestos.  After inspectors took samples and sent those samples for a microscopic analysis and confirmed there was asbestos, school officials knew they could not open on time this school year and held an emergency meeting with parents to discuss the alternatives.

old school classroomIn addition to making arrangements for the students to go to other elementary schools until Teaticket in Falmouth could be cleaned up, they worked on getting the proper permits and setting up an asbestos abatement plan.  Town selectmen voted to release $300,000 in funds and an emergency amount appropriate to pay for the asbestos abatement. However, the actual cleanup cost is turning out to be a lot higher than they initially estimated. Continue reading

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Take home asbestos cases are getting a lot of attention across the country.  A take home asbestos case deals with the defendant’s duty to warn a so-called non-user of the danger of exposure to deadly asbestos fibers.

old-worn-out-boots-1013579-m-300x261The first thing to understand is what a user of asbestos and a non-user of asbestos mean.  A user of asbestos was someone who worked in an asbestos mine, or a factory where asbestos products were used or manufactured, or a builder who worked with asbestos products.  One of the biggest uses of asbestos in construction projects was in drywall and wall joint compounds.  This means that there as a lot of dust that contained the deadly asbestos fibers being spread around the construction site. Continue reading

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According to a recent news article from Insurance Journal, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) felt it had no choice but to send its own staff into a New York factory to stop the spread of deadly asbestos fibers, as they have become a major threat to local officials.  The EPA is stepping in at the request of the local government, as the local officials do not have the resources to protect the community from the threat of exposure from asbestos.

asbestos-300x225The factory consists of multiple buildings and has been closed and abandoned for several years.  The buildings were constructed at time when asbestos was heavily used in many aspects of construction and also production. While the asbestos was very hazardous to the workers when the buildings were going up, once principal construction was complete, there was no major danger for the most part.  However, as there were likely renovations over the years, it is probable that workers were exposed to the deadly asbestos fibers from time time. Continue reading

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As many may have heard, a commuter train recently crashed in New Jersey, resulting in the death of a woman who was standing on the station platform at the time, as well as the injury of more than 100 people.   The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is currently investigating the cause of the deadly train accident, but they have run into a roadblock of sorts in their investigation, and that roadblock is the presence of deadly asbestos fibers, according to a recent news feature from NBC News.

asbestosWhat investigators do know as of this time is that the train entered the Hoboken station at a very high rate of speed.  Passengers on the train noticed they were traveling very fast and realized something was not right. The train did not engage its brakes and crashed at this high rate of speed.  Once witness said he saw the train had hit a large pylon and then crashed into a stationary store in the station.  There were over a hundred people on the train and wandering around the station.  Many of these victims were covered in blood and were described as being dazed by those who saw them, including first responders. Continue reading

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According to a recent news feature from the Boston Herald, a landlord who owns multiple rental units in New Bedford, Massachusetts has agreed to pay $100,000 in civil fines.  This payment will be made to settle claims filed by the Commonwealth’s Attorney General related to asbestos violations.  The allegations were that he was renovating four residences and engaged in illegal asbestos removal during the renovation process.

tosignacontract3Specifically, the lawsuit filed in the Suffolk Superior Court in Boston alleges that his contractors knowingly had workers remove material containing deadly asbestos fibers without wearing proper protective clothing and without having ventilators or respirators.  The material was then taken out with ordinary construction waste and taken to a landfill instead of being taken to a proper asbestos collection facility that handles this and other hazardous waste. Continue reading

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According to the The Huffington Post, asbestos in classrooms has become a major problem across the country. Schools are reportedly not handling the problem well.  The reporter notes that any older school building likely has asbestos, and some of that asbestos could be harming your children.

asbestosTo get an idea of how bad the problem has become, we can first look at data collected by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the mid 1980s.  At that time, the EPA released an estimate that more than 100,000 grade schools contained asbestos and over 700,000 public buildings did as well in the U.S.  As if this was not bad enough, they estimated that of those 100,000 schools slightly more than a third of them contained friable asbestos. Continue reading

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Teaticket Elementary School in Falmouth remains closed as the new academic year begins, due to concerns of student exposure to asbestos.

School officials had hired a contractor to work on the facility this summer to address a number of repair and maintenance issues. However, during the course of the construction work, some ceiling tiles were damaged, and inspectors immediately became concerned that those tiles contained asbestos.

old-schools-class-room-881694-mThese tiles were made at a time when asbestos was used in virtually every aspect of construction and building materials and tiles were among one of the major offenders in terms of containing the deadly asbestos files.  As is required, the inspectors hired an asbestos abatement contractor to come in and take samples of the tiles.  Trained and certified asbestos inspectors take the samples, and the samples themselves are securely stored and transported to a materials testing lab to perform a microscopic analysis.  In the case of this school, it was confirmed that asbestos was present in the tiles and was now posing a risk to anyone in the school. Continue reading

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There is no denying the space program in the United States is not like it once was.  The shuttle program ended years ago, and neither NASA nor the U.S. government currently have any ability to send manned rockets into space.  For any manned space flights, NASA must rely on Russia’s space agency to take astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) using their aging Soyuz rockets.  While it is true that without the shuttle program, ISS could never have been built, the remaining shuttles have had their engines removed and were sent to museums for permanent display.   There are three remaining shuttles which are the Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavor, which are now all tourist attractions.

rocket-1449226This is not to say there will never be manned space program, as a Mars mission capable rocket is currently being developed, and two private companies are handling unmanned space flight for the time being. Continue reading

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The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) or, as it more commonly known by locals as the “the T,” is suffering a major setback in an effort to restore and refurbish its green line trolley cars, according to a recent news feature in the Boston Globe.   The green line is one of the older parts of the system and, with its street level trolley cars (also called Ts), is one of its most well known aspects to those who do not live in the city.

trolleybus-by-night-1518660Unlike in Europe, trolley cars are not very popular in most cities in the Untied States.  There are a lot of reasons for this, but it is primarily because General Motors purchased the right-of-way to much of the trolley tracks in the U.S. following the Second World War.  The reason the company did this was so they could destroy them leaving their bus manufacturing business with little competition in terms of public transportation options, and most trolley lines were replaced with bus lines.  In some cases, these were actually electric bus lines that used the same power lines as the trolleys, and examples of this can be seen in Boston and Cambridge today. Continue reading

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According to a recent news feature from the Dorchester Reporter, a major construction project at University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston) will not likely be ready when school starts next month.  The reason for this is because asbestos discoveries have seriously delayed the process.

asbestosThe project involving moving all utility infrastructure located on the Columbia Point section of the UMass Boston campus to another location as part of an effort to improve the campus. While performing scheduled demolition work last December, inspectors located what they suspected to be asbestos.  After their discovery, the called in a certified asbestos abatement firm to collect soil samples and send them to a hazardous materials testing laboratory to confirm the presence of the deadly asbestos fibers. Continue reading

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