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Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts

Saturday, April 20, 2013

NY Times Article Criticizing OSHA, Doesn't Criticize It Enough!

On March 30, 2013, the New York Times wrote the article "As OSHA Emphasizes Safety, Long Term Health Risks Fester."  You can click on the title of the article to read the article if by chance you have not read it or saw it.  As many of you know I am a sharp critic of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and their inability to protect worker health at Ground Zero, at the BP Oil Spill, Katrina, etc, etc, etc!  Here is another sad case of OSHA failing to do their job and claiming there is nothing they can do!  Are they kidding us!  Lets see the facts in this case:

  • The culprit in this chemical exposure story is a chemical known as n-propyl bromide, or nPB.  “Medical researchers, government officials and even chemical companies that once manufactured nPB have warned for over a decade that it causes neurological damage and infertility when inhaled at low levels over long periods…”  So we know that exposure to this chemical is hazardous (fact!).

  • 3D diagram of n-propyl bromide molecule. Prepa...
    3D diagram of n-propyl bromide molecule. Prepared with Discovery Studio Visualizer 1.7 and GIMP 2.2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
  • Did we have an exposure?  “For about five years, Ms. Sheri Farley, 45, stood alongside about a dozen other workers, spray gun in hand, gluing together foam cushions for chairs and couches sold under brand names like Broyhill, Ralph Lauren, and Thomasville.  Fumes from the glue formed a yellowish fog inside the plant, and Ms. Farley’s doctors say that breathing them in eventually ate away at her nerve endings, resulting in what she and her co-workers call “dead foot”."  That sounds like an exposure to us (fact!).
  • What did the employer do to protect the workers?  “Even as worker after worker fell ill, records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration show that managers at Royale Comfort Seating, where Ms. Farley was employed, repeatedly exposed gluers to nPB levels that exceeded levels federal officials considered safe, failed to provide respirators and turned off fans meant to vent fumes."  So the employer knew the dangers and didn't protect the workers (fact!).
  • What's a willfull violation?  According to OSHA, a willfull violation is a violation that the employer intentionally and knowingly commits or a violation that the employer commits with plain indifference to the law.  OSHA may propose penalties of a maximum of $70,000 for each willfull violation (fact!).
So if you buy into this argument that OSHA is powerless to act.  Then why did violations only total, as per the article, "less than $20,000 in OSHA fines related to glue fumes."  That is a travesty!  OSHA needs to wake up and do its job.  

What does the Director of OSHA have to say about this?  “I’m the first to admit this is broken,” said David Michaels, the OSHA director, referring to the agency’s record on dealing with workplace health threats.  “Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people end up on the gurney.”  You're the director and that's your answer.  Get your act together and fix the problem.  You know there's a problem and you're not fixing it.  You should be fired!  You've been the OSHA Director for what four years and we must admit you've done a lot of good.  However, at the same time this issue of protecting worker health has continued to fester and you know its broken and you haven't fixed it.  If you were on Donald Trump's Apprentice program, you would've been fired.


Let's look at the issue that the business claims they can't afford to protect workers.  Based on the article it says Royale "which employs about 100 workers and had around $7.5 million in sales in 2011",  in addition, Royale has also "paid nearly a half-million dollars - in court settlements, required upgrades....".  Where did these business owners get their education on running a business?  Here are some statistics from the article that makes you wonder about business owners and support a need for OSHA to do a better job of protecting worker's health:

  • "Chronic ailments caused by toxic workplace air - black lung, stonecutter's disease, asbestosis, grinder's rot, pneumoconiosis, - incapacitate more than 200,000 workers in the United States annually.  More than 40,000 Americans die prematurely each year from exposure to toxic substances at work - 10 times as many as those who die from refinery explosions, mine collapses and other accidents that grab most of the news media attention."
  • Occupational illnesses and injuries like Ms. Farley's cost the American economy roughly $250 billion per year because of medical expenses and lost productivity, according to government data analyzed by J. Paul Leigh, an economist at the University of California, Davis, more than the cost of diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  Roughly 40 percent of medical expenses from workplace hazards, or about $27 billion a year, is paid by public programs like Medicare and Medicaid."
In our opinion, it would be more effective to have a respiratory protection program using respirators and proper filters.  The probable cost of a respiratory protection program for 100 workers would be around $40,000.  It seems to us it would be cheaper to provide the workers with respirators than to pay for court settlements, worker's compensation insurance costs, disability insurance costs, etc.  It is way past time we started recognizing the need to push respirator use to handle situations that either the political will, financial will, or just plain indifference is not protecting workers.
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Friday, August 12, 2011

White House and EPA Misled Public on Air Quality After 9/11 Attack.

NEW YORK, NY - JULY 08:  Construction continue...Image by Getty Images via @daylifeBased on a New York Times article "Public Misled on Air Quality After 9/11 Attack, Judge Says" - Federal judge Deborah A. Batts of Federal District Court in Manhattan, found that Christine Whitman, when she led the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), made "misleading statements of safety" about the air quality near the World Trade Center in the days after the Sept. 11 attack.  These statements may have put the public in danger.  This pointed criticism of Mrs. Whitman came in a ruling by the judge in a 2004 class action lawsuit on behalf of residents and schoolchildren from downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn who say they were exposed to air contamination inside buildings near the trade center.  The suit, against Mrs. Whitman, other former and current EPA officials and the agency itself, charges that they failed to warn people of dangerous materials in the air and then failed to carry out an adequate cleanup.  The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages and want the judge to order a thorough cleaning.  In her ruling, Judge Batts decided not to dismiss the case against Mrs. Whitman, who is being sued both as former administrator of the EPA and as an individual.

In a separate but similar article by CBS News titled "W. House Molded EPA's 9/11 Reports", the EPA's internal watchdog found that the White House influenced the statements released by the EPA and that the data did not support the statements that were released.  Making the 9/11 tragedy even deeper considering the amount of harm we did to ourselves by these actions.
 
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Friday, July 29, 2011

Judge Stops Changes to Manufacturers Trust Company Building

Marble Columns Required Protection from the Poly, Spray Glue, & Duct Tape.
This article in the New York Times regarding "Judge Stops Changes to Manufacturers Trust Company Building" brought back some memories for me.  Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company (MHT) was one of Future Environment Design's first and largest clients.  Over the time we worked with MHT we removed alot of asbestos containing materials, including troweled-on amosite asbestos containing reflectance material on the first and second floors of 510 Fifth Avenue, New York.  This building was the location of our most profitable and successful projects.  We actually discuss this project in our initial asbestos project designer classes (reviewing the original asbestos drawings and discussing problems with amosite asbestos and negative air units).  MHT wanted to perform an energy efficient upgrade to reduce the amount of electricity they were using to light the first and second floor 510 Fifth Avenue.  In addition, New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee had landmarked the building, so the general contractor (Adelhardt Construction Corp.) had to figure out how to maintain the appearance while also saving electricity.  Under that landmark interior was troweled-on amosite asbestos containing reflectance material.  As the asbestos consultant for MHT, we designed the asbestos removal portion of the project.  The entire project ended with an extremely happy client that had a payback period of 1-2 years and the project came in under budget by at least 1 million dollars.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

NYC DEP Plans Increase In Enforcement On Asbestos Investigators

New York City Department of Environmental Prot...Image via Wikipedia
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP) released plans to increase the scrutiny of Certified Asbestos Investigators.  As discussed in the New York Times article linked above, NYCDEP has hired two additional inspection monitors to review the work of the Certified Asbestos Investigators and plans to nearly double the number of office audits it conducts each year, to 75, up from 40; the agency will check the records and activities of nearly 15 percent of the 543 asbestos investigators it certifies, and perform 500 spot-check field inspections.  What caused this increase in oversight of the Certified Asbestos Investigators?  Mr. Saverio Todaro's guilty plea to federal environmental crimes, fraud and making false statements.  In our refresher classes we have discussed Mr. Todaro's case, who operated an environmental inspection and testing company, and acknowledged that he had submitted clean asbestos and lead test results for at least a decade without performing any tests.
Not only has Mr. Todaro's case caused increased scrutiny of Investigators, it also has exposed our industry to reckless statements such as "The city environmental agency regulates private asbestos inspectors, who play an important role in what has long been viewed as one of the more corrupt sectors of the construction industry."  I don't think the New York Times has accurately portrayed our industry.  Our industry like many others has individuals that will do anything for the money.  However, we have many individuals and companies in our industry that do not give into this weakness and perform their jobs in accordance with the regulations.  We provide our clients with an important service and help them protect their properties and the people who use the property.  I am very disappointed with the NY Times, in painting our industry with such a broad brush stroke based on the guilty plea of a few individuals.
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Sunday, January 24, 2010

Future Environment Designs discussion "The Pollution Within"

chemical structure of bisphenol AImage via Wikipedia
In 2006 we discussed in our blog Future Environment Designs: "The Pollution Within" from Plattsburgh, NY about an article we read in National Geographic about all the different chemicals we have inside our body.  Its interesting that on November 7, 2009 that the New York Times Op-Ed Columnist by Nicolas Kristof (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/opinion/08kristof.html) wrote "Chemicals in our Foods and Bodies".  Specifically discussing the issues with bisphenol A (BPA), its a synthetic estrogen used in plastics.  Some of you might even know that Suffolk County, New York has banned it.  BPA has been linked to a number of illnesses from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike (not conclusively).  So all of this still begs the question when are we going to do complete research on the chemicals we use to determine whether by themselves or multiple chemicals together cause or can cause illnesses or cancers.
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That Time of Year! Conferences, Posting Requirements, and OSHA Violations Increased!

It's that time of year again. We're between conferences.  February 15-16, 2024 was the Professional Abatement Contractors of New Yor...