BALTIMORE, Maryland - A Baltimore firm that specializes in “green” concrete technologies is getting a boost from W.R. Grace & Co., the chemical giant that went into bankruptcy over asbestos-related lawsuits in 2001.

Grace has made a deal with Ceratech which gives it exclusive rights to market Ceratech’s manufactured concrete technology and products. Ceratech was founded in 2001. The firm uses a special technology to create fast-setting concrete using a waste produced by coal-fired power plants called fly ash.

Andrew Bonham, president of Grace Construction Products, said in a news release that the deal with Ceratech is “the latest step in expanding our portfolio of green materials for the construction industry”.

Grace has been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and reorganization since 2001. The chemical giant was facing asbestos-related liabilities that could have totaled in the billions of dollars. Earlier this month, Grace reached an agreement with the EPA to pay a record $250 million to cover costs related to cleaning up asbestos spill at a Montana vermiculite mine once owned by the company.

That mine in Libby, Montana supplied over 90% of the vermiculite used in the United States for several decades. The vermiculite mined there was contaminated with asbestos, a carcinogen and air pollutant that causes mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that has no other known causes. It was distributed as Zonolite, an attic insulation aimed at the consumer market, and as a gardening product. The Libby mine was closed in 1994. In the years since its closing, the EPA has spent millions to clean up asbestos at the mine and in the surrounding community.

There have been over 1,200 reported diagnoses of asbestos related health conditions, including mesothelioma, in residents of the Libby area. The rate of lung cancer, asbestos cancer,  mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases is monumentally higher than the rate for those diseases in the general population.

Grace is also facing asbestos lawsuits from thousands of others who were exposed to asbestos through the mining, manufacture, distribution and use of Grace products. Attorneys for Grace have stated that the company intends to fight the lawsuits aggressively, and have already fired their first shots in a motion asking a judge to set aside as ‘worthless’ thousands of asbestos claims against the company.

Grace is currently positioning itself to emerge from bankruptcy, and awaiting approval of its reorganization plan by a bankruptcy court judge.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 5:08 pm and is filed under Asbestos Exposure, Jobsite Exposure, Maryland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.