Asbestos

Question: My 1970s cottage-cheese acoustic ceiling has been lab-tested and found to contain asbestos. Is it legal for me as a homeowner to remove the acoustic material if I use the proper safety equipment and dispose of it per regulations? Or must I have a contractor do it? Answer: Getting rid of those dated cottage-cheese or "popcorn" ceilings is often the first thing homeowners want to do in a remodel.

Les Skramstad, a former mineworker whose early suspicions helped reveal that asbestos from a vermiculite mine poisoned the air and soil and killed hundreds of residents of the northwestern Montana town of Libby, died Jan. 21 at his home of mesothelioma, an aggressive form of cancer. He was 70. Skramstad worked at the vermiculite mine from 1959 to 1962, before it was bought by W.R. Grace Co..

The Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand lower court rulings that require W.R. Grace & Co. to pay a $54.5-million federal bill for asbestos cleanup in a Montana mining town described by federal regulators as one of the nation's most contaminated Superfund sites. The court rejected Grace's appeal of a decision in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency, which sued Grace five years ago to recover the cleanup costs at a vermiculite mine in the town of Libby.

A federal bankruptcy judge indicated Monday that she approved of Owens Corning's plan for emerging from bankruptcy, almost six years after the building materials maker sought protection from creditors over health claims related to its asbestos products. Judge Judith Fitzgerald congratulated the parties from the bench Monday after overruling sometimes-impassioned objections from alleged asbestos victims and a bondholder's lawyer.

Air quality regulators issued a violation notice to a prominent Santa Ana developer Friday, after tests showed improper removal of cancer-causing asbestos during the demolition of a church being replaced by a controversial 37-story office building. Officials from the South Coast Air Quality Management District took samples from the Santa Ana site after three residents complained to the agency about what they thought were improper demolition practices.

Air quality regulators have stopped demolition of a Santa Ana church, needed to make way for a controversial 37-story office tower, after residents complained that asbestos was being removed improperly. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which rarely closes down work sites, took the action Friday after receiving complaints from three residents, agency spokesman Sam Atwood said.

Building products maker Owens Corning will pay more than $5 billion to asbestos claimants and as much as $2.27 billion to holders of bank debt as part of a plan to exit federal bankruptcy protection, a company lawyer told a Bankruptcy Court on Wednesday. The asbestos claimants, creditors and other parties agreed to the plan that would see Owens Corning emerge from more than five years of bankruptcy protection this fall, attorney Norman Pernick said.

It is a quest that challenges Congress to its very core. For almost three decades, a political answer to the barrage of claims arising from exposure to cancer-causing asbestos has eluded lawmakers. Meanwhile, the longest-running legal brawl over a workplace hazard in U.S. history grinds on with no end in sight. In the latest chapter, the Senate last month rejected a plan to create a $140-billion trust fund to compensate asbestos victims.

"It was beautiful," Terry McCann told me. "It would come down like silver, a silvery snow." The retired Orange County business executive and 1960 Olympic gold-medal wrestler was describing the dust that filled the air of the Oklahoma refinery site where he worked in 1957 and 1958. It would settle on his face, his hair, his clothes, sting his eyes, fill his lungs. This floating, glittering nuisance was asbestos.

The Senate rejected a new plan Tuesday to compensate asbestos victims, apparently dooming a proposed $140-billion fund that would have handled claims now battled out in court. Under the legislation, asbestos makers and their insurers would have contributed to a trust fund to pay claims for illnesses in amounts from $25,000 to $1.1 million. But the measure faced attacks on several fronts.