Failing to address serious hazards may be costly for companies

Workers exposed to combustible dust and other hazards at Illinois cornstarch processing facility

Longtime exposure to chemicals and other
contaminants may affect workers' health.

PARIS, Ill. – Workers were exposed to combustible cornstarch dust, dust particles in excess of permissible exposure limits and other hazards at Septimus Inc.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited the company for 21 serious safety and health violations, carrying proposed penalties of $46,400.

A complaint prompted the inspection at the facility, which processes cornstarch for use in laundry detergent and other products.

"Combustible dust can burn rapidly and explode with little warning, putting workers at risk for severe injury and death," said Thomas Bielema, OSHA's area director in Peoria.

"OSHA's inspection found that Septimus used potential ignition sources, like forklifts and electrical equipment, in areas where combustible dust was present."

OSHA's April 30, 2014, inspection found workers were exposed because processing and dust collection equipment lacked protective covers.

If this dust is suspended in the air in the right concentration, under certain conditions, it can become explosive.

The inspection found the company operated powered industrial vehicles in poor repair that were not rated for use in environments where combustible dust was present.

These vehicles, along with numerous electrical violations, provided potential ignition sources for the dust. The force from such an explosion can cause employee deaths, injuries and destruction of buildings.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board identified 281 combustible dust incidents between 1980 and 2005 that led to the deaths of 119 workers, 718 injuries and numerous extensively damaged industrial facilities.

Workers were also exposed to airborne concentrations of dust in excess of the permissible exposure limit, which can cause respiratory illness and lung disease. The company failed to implement administrative and engineering controls to reduce exposure limits.

Additional serious violations involved amputation hazards and included lack of machine guarding, failure to implement specific lockout/tagout procedures to prevent machinery from operating during service and maintenance, and workers exposed to fall hazards of 7 feet or greater from unguarded working platforms.

The company also failed to train workers about hazardous chemicals in use at the facility and to mark exit routes clearly and ensure they were free of obstructions.

A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.

Septimus has a contract with Tate & Lyle to extrude, dry blend and package cornstarch. The company is owned by The Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Co. of Kansas City, Missouri.

Septimus has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA's area director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees.

OSHA's role is to ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance.

Source: OSHA

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Chemical companies back new laws but less regulation

Chemical giants want stronger federal law

Chemicals used in products need to
be regulated more, experts say.

The powerful chemical industry is putting its lobbying muscle behind legislation that would establish standards for chemicals used in products from household goods to cellphones and plastic water bottles – but also make it tougher for states to enact their own regulations.

Many states already have acted on their own.

“Rather than be picked apart on a state-by-state basis, with different regulations, we needed to have a coherent and cohesive federal system,” said Anne Kolton, spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council.

The group, which represents Dow, DuPont, BASF Corp. and 3M, spent nearly $6 million on lobbying in the first half of the year, the most recent reporting period.

There’s widespread agreement that the current law needs an overhaul.

Chemical manufacturers aren’t required to develop new data on toxicity and exposure, which has led to products containing chemicals that haven’t been screened for safety.

The President’s Cancer Panel said in 2010 that act “may be the most egregious example of ineffective regulation of environmental contaminants.”

But a big sticking point is the role of the states in regulating chemicals.

Regulation of chemicals took on new urgency after a crippling spill in West Virginia last January contaminated drinking water for 300,000 residents. The chemical in the January spill, crude MCHM, is one of thousands not regulated under current law.

West Virginia, which has not aggressively regulated chemicals, supports the Senate bill. It would require safety evaluations for all chemicals and give the Environmental Protection Agency authority to take action against chemicals deemed unsafe – ranging from labeling requirements to a ban. It would also overtake some state regulations – primarily when EPA takes action to regulate a chemical.

California, by comparison, has some of the toughest chemical regulations in the country.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is fighting to preserve state regulations. She said under the bill, states “face sweeping pre-emption even when there is no meaningful action by the federal government.”

In a letter to Congress last year, California EPA Secretary Matt Rodriquez said dozens of California laws and regulations would be at risk if the bill passes, including those regulating greenhouse gases and safe drinking water.

New York’s attorney general has raised similar concerns. Regulation by states such as California and New York can have a national impact because of their large markets.

Several of ACC’s larger members, including Bayer Corp., DuPont and Dow Chemical, lobbied on the Senate bill in the first half of the year. Connie Deford, Dow’s director of product sustainability and compliance, said the company supports the framework of the Senate bill.

“We believe it’s critical for our industry that we have a stronger federal chemical management system than where we sit today,” Deford said.

Outgunned financially, environmentalists have sometimes used star power to help illuminate their cause, but that hasn’t been enough to overcome industry opposition. The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition had teamed up with actress Jessica Alba to promote different legislation. The bill never got a vote in Congress.

In an interview, Alba said she can’t compete with lobbyists.

“You can have certain public figures go in and advocate and raise a red flag and put a spotlight on an issue, but at the end of the day, it’s people that are there day in and day out, that are pounding the pavement,” Alba said.

Source: The Journal Gazette

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Lead paint suit results in $2.1 million award

Jury awards millions to youth, who was poisoned by
lead paint as a toddler.

A Baltimore jury has awarded nearly $2.1 million to a 17-year-old city youth who was allegedly poisoned by lead paint in the 1990s when he was a toddler in an East Baltimore rental home.

The judgment against Elliot Dackman and the estates of Sandra and Bernard Dackman came recently in Baltimore Circuit Court, at the end of the weeklong trial of a lawsuit brought on behalf of Daquantay Robinson by his mother, Tiesha Robinson.

The jury verdict shows the long-running tide of litigation over the widespread use of lead-based paint in Baltimore's older rental housing has yet to ebb, according to Bruce Powell, the Robinsons' lawyer.

Though Maryland lawmakers enacted a law in 1994 meant to protect young tenants from lead-paint risks, Powell said, "Here we are; there are still a lot of cases."

Dozens of cases remain outstanding naming Elliott Dackman as a defendant, for example.

Daquantay Robinson had enough lead in his blood to be considered poisoned for more than 18 months while his family lived in a Darley Park home owned by the Dackman Co., Powell said.

According to documents submitted at trial, blood samples taken every six months and analyzed by Johns Hopkins medical laboratories repeatedly revealed what were then considered to be elevated levels of the toxic metal in the toddler.

Sandra Moses, the youth's grandmother, who testified at the trial, said she noticed flaking and chipping paint in the home when the family moved in just before Daquantay was born. She said she called the landlord to complain about it some time later.

"They didn't send anybody out to do any repairs, and I called several times" Moses, 50, recalled.

Subsequent testing after the lawsuit was filed found that while the home has since been substantially renovated, there are still surfaces there with lead paint on them, the family's lawyer said.

Frank F. Daily, who represented the defendants, declined to comment. Circuit Judge Alfred Nance presided over the trial.

Expert witnesses called for the family testified that the youth suffered permanent brain damage as a result of his exposure to lead, leading to learning and behavior problems.

Exposure to lead paint has
resulted in brain damage,
expert witnesses say.

Moses said he "has a hard time keeping up with the other students" in high school.

"Studies have consistently shown that exposure to lead paint, especially in children under the age of 6, can result in a lifetime of medical expenses and financial instability," Powell said in a statement announcing the verdict. "Although no monetary settlement can replace what has been taken from this child, we do feel vindicated when the responsible landlords are brought to justice in court."

It's unclear how much money will actually go to the plaintiff. The jury awarded $1.27 million in economic damages for lost earnings and $818,000 for pain and suffering, the family's lawyer said, but noneconomic damages are capped under state law at $545,000.

The landlord's insurance company also contends it's only liable for a fraction of the damages because it didn't cover the property the entire time he lived there, Powell said.

"There's going to have to be further litigation to get the victim paid," the Robinsons' lawyer predicted.

The award, coming 15 years or more after the youth's alleged exposure to toxic lead paint, highlights the price people continue to pay for Maryland's gradual, at times halting approach to dealing with the health hazards posed by the paint's widespread use in housing decades ago, said Ruth Ann Norton, president and CEO of the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative. The group, formerly known as the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, has advocated for stronger lead-paint laws and regulations for decades.

The Darley Park home had been registered with the Maryland Department of the Environment before the Robinsons moved in, as the law required then for all rental units built before 1950. (That was the year lead-based paint was banned in Baltimore city out of concern for its health effects.) Jay Apperson, a state spokesman, said department records contain certification of "full risk reduction" at the property in 1996 before the Robinsons moved in, also as required.

Apperson could not say how the risk reduction was verified. But Norton said that for many years, the state allowed landlords to get by with a visual inspection to certify that lead-paint hazards had been properly dealt with. The only reliable way to check was to swipe window sills and other surfaces for lead-paint dust so fine it couldn't be seen, she said. Lawmakers began requiring lead dust tests in 2012.

Also, in the late 1990s, health standards had yet to require action in cases like Daquantay's. Since 1991, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had said anyone with blood-lead levels of 10 micrograms per deciliter or higher was considered poisoned. But Maryland health authorities were not expected to contact a poisoned child's family or inspect the home unless the level reached 15 micrograms per deciliter, noted MDE's Apperson. Daquantay's highest blood level was a notch below that threshold.

Since then, the CDC has declared that no amount of lead in blood is safe and lowered its "reference" level to 5 micrograms per deciliter.

"The rates this kid had are no longer considered to be a low-level poisoning," Norton said. "These are high."

With increasingly tighter regulations and stricter enforcement, the number of lead poisoned children in Maryland has declined dramatically since the late 1990s. The state is moving now to regulate lead paint in rental homes built between 1950 and 1978, when the federal government banned its sale for interior use. The state also is looking to enforce federal regulations requiring house painters and home improvement contractors take precautions when working even in owner-occupied homes.

"Over the past decade, there has been an increase in enforcement" of lead-paint laws and regulations, Norton said. "It's just regrettable it took so long to get those things in place for this particular family. One hopes we see less of this as we move forward with stronger enforcement and stronger laws."

Source: Baltimore Sun

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New brominated flame retardant under the microscope

Electronics manufacturers may be using the compound as a replacement for toxic PBDEs

Household dust is a main source of
exposure to flame retardants for humans.

A team of scientists using a rapid screening test have detected a new type of brominated flame retardant in homes — the first such compound found since 2008.

They discovered the compound in plastic electronic products made since 2012, suggesting manufacturers are using it to replace flame retardants that were phased out or banned due to toxicity issues.

Flame retardants are used in many consumer products, including electronics, clothing, and furniture, and as a result, scientists find the chemicals in outdoor air, household dust, and human blood and milk.

Between 2002 and 2008, the manufacture of brominated flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) was banned or phased out in Europe and the U.S. after researchers linked the compounds to neurotoxic effects and disruption of hormonal signaling.

“As a result of these regulations, the use of alternative flame retardants is increasing rapidly,” says Ana María Ballesteros-Gómez, an analytical environmental chemist at VU University Amsterdam.

Manufacturers don’t report the flame retardants used in consumer products, so scientists must use their best sleuthing technology to monitor new compounds introduced to the market.

Ballesteros-Gómez and her colleagues developed a rapid screening process that involves scratching the surface of plastic products with a probe to release fine particles of the material into the inlet of a high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer.

To look for new compounds, she and her team went shopping for household electronics encased in hard plastic likely to contain flame retardants. They bought 13 products made since 2012, including televisions, power strips, and a vacuum cleaner. They also visited a recycling center in Amsterdam and retrieved 13 products made before 2006, when PBDEs were still in use.

The mass spectra from the new plastics contained an unknown peak signifying a compound with nine bromine atoms. Using data analysis software, the chemists generated several potential molecular formulas for the mystery compound.

The scientists then ran the formulas through several online chemical structure databases and found only one match: a triazine brominated flame retardant named 2,4,6-tris(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)-1,3,5-triazine (TTBP-TAZ).

To confirm the match and to measure the compound’s concentrations in the plastic, the team subjected plastic samples to liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry. They detected TTBP-TAZ in eight of the 13 new products at levels up to 1.9% by weight of the product.

Ballesteros-Gómez says the data suggest widespread use of the new compound. The researchers couldn’t find TTBP-TAZ in the old plastics. “Manufacturers may be using TTBP-TAZ to replace the banned octaBDE and decaBDE in hard plastics,” Ballesteros-Gómez says.

Because household dust is the major route of human exposure to flame retardants, the researchers visited nine Dutch homes and took dust samples directly from electronic equipment, from tables around the equipment, and from the floor. They detected TTBP-TAZ at levels between 160 and 22,150 ng per g of dust.

These concentrations are lower than those reported for PBDEs and about the same as those for V6, a chlorinated organophosphate flame retardant. TTBP-TAZ is the first new brominated flame retardant found in homes since tetrabromobisphenol-A-bis-(2, 3-dibromopropylether) was detected in 2008, the researchers say.

Source: Chemical & Engineering News by American Chemical Society

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Schools receive grants to limit pesticide exposure

Integrated pest management practices are shown to reduce pesticide use

Children are vulnerable to chemical exposures, experts say.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March announced three grants to facilitate integrated pest management practices in schools.

This funding will help reduce student’s exposure to pests and pesticides in the nation’s schools, while saving money, energy and pesticide treatment costs.

“Children are among the most vulnerable members of our society, and it’s EPA’s job to protect them from harmful chemicals,” said James Jones, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.

“We aim to help schools implement sustainable pest management practices to create a healthier environment for our children and teachers.”

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) reduces pesticide use, helps to eliminate pests and saves schools money.

For example, 18 schools in Monroe County, Indiana have reduced both pesticide use and pest control costs by 90 percent using IPM practices.

This approach has the potential to reach all 15,000 school districts and improve the health and well-being of the 49 million children attending public and tribal schools in the United States.

IPM measures help prevent pests from becoming a threat by taking action to address the underlying causes that enable pests to thrive in schools.

These actions, such as repairing water leaks, adding weather stripping to windows, and installing door sweeps, reduce pesticide use and treatment costs while reducing water and energy costs.

The IPM common-sense approach is a stark contrast to conventional pest management in which an exterminator uses pesticides school-wide on a regular schedule, potentially exposing school children, teachers and staff to pesticides, with little emphasis on removing the underlying conditions that make it inviting to pests.

The three grants will be awarded to:

• TheTexas A&M Agrilife Extension to develop a central, internet-based hub for materials and phone apps that will give school districts the information and tools they need to adopt an IPM program. While the project aims to reach 1 percent of schools (552,350 students) within three years, it has the potential to reach all of the 15,000 school districts nation-wide and the 49 million children attending US public schools.
• The University of Arizona to develop and carry out a pilot training and certification program for school staff (custodians, kitchen staff, and school administrators) in eight states and four tribes, working with five other universities and stakeholders. Once finalized, the materials will be made available to schools nation-wide through partners.
• The Michigan State University to help 5 percent of Michigan and Indiana schools adopt IPM through hands-on education, training and coalition-building, including web-based trainings and a website. About 135,000 children may be protected.

Source: EPA

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