Articles Tagged with asbestos exposure

A news feature from GazetteNet.com takes a closer look at recent environmental news headlines involving Holyoke and other parts of the Commonwealth Of Massachusetts.   One issue discussed in the article is a large-scale effort to clean up the Connecticut River Watershed. The Watershed stretches over 400 miles through Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and the planned cleanup is scheduled to take place along the entire watershed in all three states.

The cleanup is held each fall and usually attracts thousands of volunteers. Some of these volunteers will walk along the river and wade into the water, while others will use private boats to patrol the river and collect trash. Plastic bags are one of the most common types of trash found in rivers, and they have been known to kill animals and do all kinds of damage to the watershed environment.   Another problem with the river is a major illegal tire dump site located nearby. Tires are hard to dispose of and cost money to destroy, so people tend to dump them illegally. Rivers and other bodies of water happen to be sites where unscrupulous people tend to throw them, and, with steel belts, these tires tend to sink to the bottom, where they are not seen until the pile gets much bigger. Continue reading

According to a recent news article from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), in the immediate aftermath of the horrific terror attack on the United States, many people were awestruck by images of burning jet fuel and smoke rising in the air. There was, in fact, 90,000 gallons of burning aviation fuel and a considerable amount of thick black smoke over Manhattan.

However, it was the giant plumes of dust and debris rising in the air for days on end that were really a sight never to be forgotten, and it was these same clouds of dust reeking having on the lungs and internal organs of the thousands of workers at Ground Zero in New York City. Continue reading

BASF is one of the largest chemical companies in the world. Business was going well for the company, and it seemed like it had money to burn. As part of its desire to grow and expand, the firm purchased an ownership interest in a company known as the Engelhard Corporation, as discussed in a recent article from Bloomberg.

In addition to gaining ownership interest in the firm, BASF unknowingly inherited what has been called a ticking time bomb in terms of liability for mesothelioma lawsuits due to asbestos exposure. Engelhard Corporation manufactured the asbestos for many years, so the risk and liability transferred with the sale of the company.

The reason the chemical giant didn’t see this coming is because the product produced by Engelhard was traditionally known as an asbestos product outside the industry. It was industrial grade talc. While some talc was used in barbershops prior to the advent of non-talc baby powder, the majority of talc was used in heavy industry and production. It was also used in building construction materials, such as wall boards, and it was used as quick way to handle hot materials on a production line. It was common for workers at tire plant to use talc as quick temporary insulation, so they could grab the hot tires without burning their hands. Continue reading

Last month, a seven-alarm fire turned a large mill near the city of Worcester, Massachusetts into huge piles of rubble spread out over the large industrial lot. The owner of the lot wishes to demolish the rest of the rubble and clear the lot, but he is currently awaiting the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to work with him on the required state-approved asbestos abatement plan, before any work can begin, according to a recent news article from the Worcester Telegram.

Around a week after the large blaze that destroyed the mill, the owner submitted his plan to MassDEP for review and approval. Pursuant to the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the federal government, asbestos abatement must be performed and complete before any demolition work can begin. Continue reading

According to a recent report from Recycling Today, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) issued a fine of over $36,000 to a recycling company in Millbury, Massachusetts for allegedly violating the Commonwealth’s law regarding the handling and disposal of asbestos and mercury.

MassDEP employed both its asbestos program and an “Environmental Strike Force” the agency maintains, which conducts unannounced inspections to make sure companies are following the rules, to get into the facility to see if there were any violations. According to one agency spokesperson, when they arrived at the recycling facility, they found large pieces of asbestos insulation, which was both dry and not secured in a container, lying on the ground. They also found asbestos on scrap metal and deteriorating boilers that were in open-air lots. Continue reading

According to a recent news story from The Buffalo News, a New York trial court jury has just awarded a plaintiff $1.42 million in mesothelioma case. The trial lasted nine days, and the plaintiff was a former United States military service member who was exposed to deadly asbestos material during his military career.   The defendant was a maker of asbestos gaskets based out of Chicago, and the claim in the case was wrongful death under a theory of negligence. Continue reading

Anyone who lives in the Washington, DC area is well aware of the troubles with the aging metro system, which operates much like Boston’s T system. However, unlike in Boston, the subway stations are very deep underground and there are huge escalators to take passengers up and down at the stations. Unfortunately, they are rarely working, and this is one of the major concerns of residents and tourists.

There have also been several incidents that made national news over the past several years. The 2009 train crash, which resulted in numerous deaths and many cases of serious personal injury, was one of these events, as was the incident earlier this year when a train got caught in a smoke-filled tunnel for hours as rescue workers were not able to help to due broken radios and other problems. In that incident, one passenger died from smoke inhalation, and many others were seriously injured. Continue reading

There has been a great deal of news coverage about Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (GTMO), or “Gitmo” as it is often called, and the military prison camp located on the base.   This is, of course, Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, used to house detainees in the War on Terror. Much of the controversy in the media was because many of these prisoners were not charged with any crime, yet not afforded access to counsel for a significant amount of time.

Even though there has been a lot of pressure to close the prison camp, which has not happened for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is that the administration does not feel it has a suitable alternative for transferred released prisoners. While these problems are not in the news as much as they were in years past, that may change as part of the coverage surrounding the upcoming presidential election cycle. Continue reading