Archive for October, 2007

Dana Corporation, a supplier of auto parts, has announced that it will pay 7,500 personal injury claimants a total of $2 million to resolve their lawsuits stemming from asbestos-laden gaskets produced by the company.

According to an Associated Press article, in papers filed Friday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Dana referred to the settlement as a “reasonable and expedient way” to resolve the claims without litigation.

The company, which makes axles, drive shafts, and other auto parts, entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2006. The article notes that Dana is trying to “exit bankruptcy protection under a reorganization plan that calls for unsecured creditors to recover between 72 percent and 86 percent on their claims.”

As of June 2007, the company was faced with more than 150,000 asbestos-related personal injury claims awaiting resolution. Dana lawyers state that many of the claimants aren’t even sick and only about seven percent of all the claims involve individuals with mesothelioma, a cancer for which the only known cause is asbestos exposure.

“The vast majority of cases filed against Dana do not involve any of Dana’s products and ultimately are dismissed,” the company said. The asbestos claims “were neither a significant factor in Dana’s decision to file its Chapter 11 case nor a driving force in the Chapter 11 proceedings.”

“The latest settlement, which will cost a maximum $2 million if all claimants can submit the required proof to support their claims, will resolve about 7 percent of the mesothelioma claims and 4 percent of the [other] cancer claims filed against the parts supplier,” the article points out.

According to an Associated Press article, W.R. Grace and Company has agreed to pay $17.9 million to settle eight asbestos property-damage claims as part of its Chapter 11 case.

The settlements, which come on the heels of a bankruptcy court ruling favoring asbestos claimants who had sought to speed up the claims resolution process against Grace, will include the Port of Seattle, which would receive the largest claim at $14.5 million, followed by the state of Washington’s claim of just over $2 million, and the Fargo Housing and Redevelopment Authority claim, for which the organization would get about $810,000.

Other claimants include CHP Associates of Cherry Hill, N.J., the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in Montgomery, Minn., the Church of St. Helena in Minneapolis, and the American Legion of Fargo, N.D.

Columbia, MD-based W.R. Grace and Company admitted no wrongdoing in any asbestos matters but said it agreed to settle “because it is in the best interest of its Chapter 11 estates to avoid further expense, inconvenience and the distraction of expensive, burdensome and protracted litigation over the claims’ merit and value.”

According to the article, the agreement requires that the claims be paid within 30 days after the bankruptcy court approves Grace’s reorganization plan. Grace will either pay the claims from its bankruptcy estate or through an asbestos trust fund.

The bankrupt Grace is currently faced with more than 135,000 asbestos-related lawsuits. The company claims their asbestos liabilities are estimated at about $1.3 billion. Critics believe that number is closer to $5 billion.

Fire engines and ladder trucks at the main fire station in Dedham, MA have been forced to stay outside since contractors uncovered asbestos during a renovation project.

According to an article in the Daily News-Transcript, inspectors from the Massachusetts Division of Occupational Services responded a few weeks ago to complaints about noise and dust coming from the station. Upon inspection, they found pipe insulation damaged by water-blasting in the garage. Inspectors determined that the insulation contained asbestos and immediately shut down the project.

“We ordered that the blasting work, which was stopped at the time of the inspection, not be resumed until existing contamination could be cleaned up and safeguards were put in place to prevent further damage,” said a statement released yesterday by Linnea Walsh, spokesman for the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. “Town officials, who were present during the inspection, complied with this request.”

It was recommended that Dedham officials hire a licensed asbestos abatement professional to assess the contamination and clean up the station. The town administrator, William Keegan, noted that the contractor doing the renovation work was responsible for the damage and the exposed asbestos. The contractor agreed to their responsibility for the error and volunteered to pay for the clean up.

“They needed to take down a section of the floor and a machine they were using malfunctioned and created damage inside the building,” Keegan said. “We are working to rectify the damage.”

Keegan added that the town’s primary concern was getting the work completed before the onset of winter, so trucks would not need to be parked outdoors.

“We are hoping to be back online next week and have the project done by Thanksgiving,” said Keegan, “but are looking at what to do if that does not happen.”

A group of scientists at the University of Torino, Italy have come up with a new way to degrade asbestos from the environment. According to an article in Chemistry News, a publication of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Dr. Bice Fubini and his colleagues at the university have honed a new procedure that could be developed into a tool for bioremediation of asbestos contaminated environments.

In technical terms, the scientists were able to degrade chrysotile asbestos - the most common form of the mineral - using a combination of oxalic acid and ultrasound treatment.  Oxalic acid acts as a chelating agent, binding to the magnesium in the asbestos. Together with the ultrasound, this disrupts the mineral structure, breaking down the long fibers that make the asbestos species carcinogenic. The resulting product is mainly an amorphous solid, with small amounts of mineral fibers that are unregulated and believed to be harmless.

Fubini hopes that utilization of this clean-up method can begin in the not so distant future. “Future development will be needed to adapt the method to a large influx of fibers suspended in water, and may require us to find out the optimal chelating agent concentration. But once found it could be applied to polluted waters, eluates from disused mines, and so on,” Fubini stated in a press release.

Mike Hochella, professor of mineralogy and geochemistry at Virginia Tech, said he was impressed with the results. “The Fubini group has long been recognized as one of the best labs in the world for the study of fibrous silicates, and they have had many breakthrough discoveries. This paper appears to be another breakthrough,” Hochella said. “In the earth, these fibers may persist for as long as millions of years. In an organism, they may persist from years to decades. Under the treatment described in this paper, they persist for less than 24 hours. This technique has great potential as a remediation tool, and it may be relatively easy to implement.”