Asbestos

Art Valdez spent 26 years working in the dust in the nation's last asbestos mill, pulling down $17.85 an hour before the place shut down last year. He had a pension and five weeks' paid vacation. He had health insurance for his family. He could afford to give cars to his two boys, visit friends in Texas and take his wife to Denny's as often as he wished. "I didn't know what asbestos was," he recalled recently. "I thought that was the best job ever."

To hear Kelly-Moore's lawyer tell it, the Union Carbide salesmen had their mantra down: Don't worry, they'd say, don't worry. Union Carbide Corp. was one of the companies that supplied Kelly-Moore Paint Co. of San Carlos, Calif., with the asbestos used as a thickening agent in its products.

For the off-road warriors of Northern and Central California, few wild landscapes are as enticing as the Clear Creek Management Area, with its deep canyons, scampering feral pigs, rainbow-hued flowers and giant rock formations. But on Thursday, a 48-square-mile swath of the Diablo Mountains in San Benito and Fresno counties was labeled a virtual death zone where five visits a year over three decades could lead to lung cancer and other crippling diseases.

Scanning his newspaper one day in 1991, Norman Braun was amazed to read that Kent cigarettes--once touted as offering "the greatest health protection in cigarette history"--had contained a particularly virulent form of asbestos. He clipped and mailed the article to his sons, along with a note: "I smoked these damn cigarettes." Still, Braun felt more indignant than fearful.

This column is called "Do-It-Yourself," but this time it is about something you shouldn't try on your own: removal of asbestos from the home. Exposure to the one-time miracle mineral, used for lightweight fireproofing and insulation, is now known to cause serious health problems. And if you live in a home built before 1978--when asbestos was prohibited--it's likely that asbestos-containing materials are present.

A federal jury on Friday acquitted W.R. Grace & Co. and three of its former officials of charges that they knowingly exposed residents of Libby, Mont., to asbestos poisoning associated with a mining operation and conspired to hide it. The verdict brings to an ignominious end one of the most significant criminal prosecutions the government had ever filed against a corporate polluter.

Teachers at an Orange County high school asked Fullerton school board members Tuesday to adopt new procedures to ensure that students and teachers are not threatened by renovations to remove asbestos from buildings. The educators said they were concerned about the long-term health effects of what they said was a sloppy removal of asbestos from two schools last fall, undertaken without notifying parents and teachers, and in one case, in the same building where students were taking classes.

Halliburton Co. said Thursday that it reached an agreement to limit its cash required to settle asbestos lawsuits to $2.78 billion, delaying bankruptcy filings for two of its units. The settlement, which must be approved by 75% of the known asbestos claimants, is conditioned on a Chapter 11 filing for protection from creditors for the units, DII Industries and Kellogg Brown & Root, on or before Dec. 31.

An ill museum worker alleged Tuesday that the Smithsonian Institution didn't properly contain asbestos-laden dust from construction at the National Air and Space Museum and penalized him after he complained. The federal complaint said workers weren't informed of the material's presence until March 2008, even though the Smithsonian acknowledged it knew about the asbestos in the building's outer walls since at least 1992.

Asbestos victims and others injured by exposure to toxics can collect only limited damages in court if their illnesses were undetected when voters passed the 1986 so-called "deep pockets" initiative, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 6-1 ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Northern California asbestos victim James Buttram, who did not discover his cancer until 1991, at least seven years after evidence showed that the fatal disease began developing in his body.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday declared its first public health emergency, saying the federal government would funnel $6 million to provide medical care for people sickened by asbestos from a mine in Montana. The declaration applies to the towns of Libby and Troy, where for decades workers dug for vermiculite, a mineral used in insulation.

A federal jury on Friday acquitted W.R. Grace & Co. and three of its former officials of charges that they knowingly exposed residents of Libby, Mont., to asbestos poisoning associated with a mining operation and conspired to hide it. The verdict brings to an ignominious end one of the most significant criminal prosecutions the government had ever filed against a corporate polluter.

An ill museum worker alleged Tuesday that the Smithsonian Institution didn't properly contain asbestos-laden dust from construction at the National Air and Space Museum and penalized him after he complained. The federal complaint said workers weren't informed of the material's presence until March 2008, even though the Smithsonian acknowledged it knew about the asbestos in the building's outer walls since at least 1992.

For the off-road warriors of Northern and Central California, few wild landscapes are as enticing as the Clear Creek Management Area, with its deep canyons, scampering feral pigs, rainbow-hued flowers and giant rock formations. But on Thursday, a 48-square-mile swath of the Diablo Mountains in San Benito and Fresno counties was labeled a virtual death zone where five visits a year over three decades could lead to lung cancer and other crippling diseases.

Trace amounts of asbestos were found in the dust and muddy debris that rained down on people fleeing a steam pipe explosion, but city officials said Thursday that the exposure posed very little health risk to those caught in the fallout. Citing environmental tests by the city and the utility Con Edison, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought to allay the chief fear among those who were near the blast: exposure to cancer-causing asbestos that was used to insulate the 83-year-old pipe.

Travelers Cos. said Friday that it would settle one of its largest asbestos cases for $449 million. The St. Paul-based commercial insurer settled the case with ACandS Inc., which installed insulation with asbestos from 1958 to 1974 and was insured by Travelers. Travelers said it would pay $365 million of the settlement and reinsurers would cover $84 million. Travelers said its portion would come from its asbestos reserves without hurting earnings.

Teachers at an Orange County high school asked Fullerton school board members Tuesday to adopt new procedures to ensure that students and teachers are not threatened by renovations to remove asbestos from buildings. The educators said they were concerned about the long-term health effects of what they said was a sloppy removal of asbestos from two schools last fall, undertaken without notifying parents and teachers, and in one case, in the same building where students were taking classes.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo announced Tuesday that he has filed criminal charges against prominent downtown Los Angeles developer Meruelo Maddux Properties, accusing the firm of improperly removing and disposing of asbestos-tainted material from an industrial complex. Named in the 16-count complaint is the company and its president, John Charles Maddux, and project managers John Durham and John Horrigan.

In the beginning, Los Angeles' first modern skyscraper won acclaim. Then, the Sunset-Vine Tower somehow turned into the city's most cursed landmark. Some of its problems were real. An electrical explosion in 2001 burned out its entire power system. There was a surprise lockout of its tenants by city officials. Squatters took over the 20-story building and turned it into what some called "the world's biggest crack house." Others were imaginary.

Building materials maker James Hardie Industries was sued Wednesday by Australian securities regulators over its handling of compensation for people sickened by asbestos in its products. Hardie's operational headquarters are in Mission Viejo, although it is incorporated in the Netherlands. It was founded in Australia more than a century ago.