Dr. David Weissman, Director of the Respiratory Disease Studies Division for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and Max Kiefer, Director of the NIOSH Western States Office, have recommended protection for workers who may be exposed to erionite, a naturally occurring mineral found in volcanic ash altered by weathering and ground water.

In its fibrous form, erionite can be problematic when it is disturbed and becomes airborne. Erionite fibers pose an inhalation hazard, which research has shown to be 100 to 800 times more lethal than asbestos.

Residents of Cappadocian villages in Turkey use erionite-containing rock to construct homes. The inhabitants have been found to have a very high risk of developing malignant mesothelioma. Erionite is also quite prevalent in the sedimentary rocks of the Western United States.

Until recently, erionite was not considered a hazard in North America, because little risk for exposure was foreseen; however, evidence linking exposure to erionite with serious adverse health effects suggests that some workers have a greater potential for exposure than previously recognized.

The first North American case of erionite-related lung disease was observed in 1981. The victim was a Utah construction worker who lived in an area rich in zeolite deposits. He had extensive parenchymal and pleural fibrosis, and a lung biopsy revealed the presence of fibrous and nonfibrous particles that had compositions consistent with erionite.

Erionite-related disease has most often been reported in road construction and maintenance workers who have occupational exposures to erionite-containing gravel used in road surfacing.

Erionite has been designated a known human carcinogen and the US Geological Survey found that erionite fibers from Turkey, North Dakota, and Oregon were chemically and morphologically similar.

Precautions to protect workers by limiting the generation and inhalation of erionite-contaminated dust should be in place, yet there are neither regulatory or consensus standards, nor occupational exposure limits for airborne erionite fibers. The 14 steps recommended by NIOSH below are nonobligatory, but represent a sensible preliminary step in addressing the hazards of erionite exposure.

A good approach to protecting workers would be to utilize the precautions described in OSHA's guidance for working with asbestos (29 CFR 1910.1001). Weissman and Kiefer have also made the following risk-reduction recommendations in an attempt to limit exposure to gravel or soil that may contain erionite:

1. Train workers about the hazards of erionite and control methods for reducing exposure.
2. Know where erionite containing material may be encountered prior to beginning work.
3. Avoid the use of erionite containing aggregate whenever possible.
4. Use wet methods to reduce dust generation for road and other work where erionite is present; use machinery with dust collection systems.
5. Limit the number of workers who will be engaged in work with erionite.
6. Establish decontamination protocols including changes of clothing, showering before leaving the worksite, and appropriate cleaning and disposal of personal protective equipment.
7. Ensure that work clothing is not washed at home to prevent erionite fibers from being brought home on clothes and footwear.
8. Prohibit dry sweeping, the use of leaf blowers or compressed air for cleaning.
9. Protect employees with personal protective equipment, including respiratory protection.
10. Prohibit eating, drinking, or smoking in dusty work areas where erionite fibers may be airborne. Workers should move away from the work area for breaks and wash their hands and face before eating, drinking, or smoking.
11. Establish protocols for vehicle use on erionite-containing roads (drive slowly, vents closed, windows up).
12. Wet-wash equipment and vehicle exteriors, and wet-clean using High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter vacuuming of vehicle interiors.
13. Follow the EPA procedures for proper disposal of waste and debris containing erionite.
14. Prevent visitors and workers from standing in work areas where erionite fibers may become airborne.

I was surprised to see a news release from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stating that a former EPA fugitive had been caught and sentenced to prison for running an asbestos training scam. 

First of all, I wasn’t aware that the EPA had a fugitive list.  Second of all, I was appalled at what this fugitive had done. 

Albania Deleon ran an asbestos abatement training school in Methuen, MA from 2001 through 2006.  During this time, the company offered training courses on proper asbestos abatement.  Upon successful completion of an asbestos training course, participants are considered certified in asbestos abatement and given a certificate stating so. 

Ms. Deleon skipped a few key steps in this process.  She was convicted of, among other things, selling certificates to thousands of illegal aliens who had not taken the required course.  The individuals then filed the certificates with the Massachusetts Division of Occupational Safety in order to be authorized to work in asbestos abatement.

Ms. Deleon then placed these uncertified workers in positions as certified abatement workers in public buildings throughout New England. 

The fact that someone cold knowingly do this blows my mind.  It’s similar to a story covered previously on this blog about a man in Iowa who knowingly allowed a building he owned that contained asbestos-laden materials to undergo extensive renovations without the proper equipment or certified workers. 

What Ms. Deleon did happened on a much larger scale and with the potential for much larger consequences.  It is estimated that certificates were issued to over 2,000 unqualified individuals.

Ms. Deleon was captured in the Dominican Republic in November of 2010, nineteen months after her federal conviction in 2008.  She was sentenced to 87 months in prison and ordered to pay $1.2 million to the IRS (she was also found guilty of tax fraud), and $369,015 to AIM Mutual Insurance Company. 

After her conviction in 2008, but before she fled back to her native Dominican Republic, Ms. Deleon wrote in a letter “I pray that God will forgive my soul and allow me to atone the rest of my life repaying and repairing the harm I have done.  This is my solemn promise…I commit myself to work ceacelessly [sic] to make restitution to the government and to the keeper of my soul until I draw my last breath life (sic).” 

The irony in that statement is obvious, as many of the workers that received “certification” under her watch will suffer long and painful deaths from asbestosis or other asbestos-related diseases. 

I am glad to see that the EPA is cracking down on environmental criminals like Ms. Deleon.  The EPA fugitive website was launched in December 2008 and has helped aid in the capture of five environmental criminals in that time.

Albania Deleon Goes to Prison for Asbestos Training Scam

After nearly 19 months as a fugitive living in the Dominican Republic and another year and a half awaiting sentencing, EPA fugitive Albania Deleon has finally received her prison sentence. Deleon was first arrested and placed on trial in November 2008, following a five-year fraud scandal with her business, Environmental Compliance Training (ECT).

The Massachusetts-based company provided week-long certification courses in asbestos removal, a dangerous profession that requires strict safeguards. An investigation found, however, that ECT was signing certificates without placing the workers in the training course. Over 2,000 untrained individuals were certified as a result, despite a real lack of qualifications in the removal process.

Asbestos exposure causes significant health problems, including asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, a rare but extremely deadly form of cancer that attacks the thin membranes lining the lungs, heart, chest, and abdomen. Improper asbestos removal is a leading cause of exposure.

Following a 2008 trial that lasted three weeks, Deleon fled the United States and assumed a false identity, but was caught in 2010 in the Dominican Republic through a joint effort led by the EPA, US Marshals office, and local authorities.

The recent sentencing includes a seven-year prison sentence, three additional years of supervised release, and fines including $1.2 million to the Internal Revenue Service for restitution and another $369,015 to AIM Mutual Insurance Company.

According to Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the "sentence marks the final chapter in bringing Albania Deleon to justice.  Committing environmental crimes to make a profit that put workers and our communities at risk carry serious consequences."

Citation Regulatory Analyst Kym Luttermoser offers her own impressions of the Deleon case in her blog article, EPA Fugitive Captured.

I recently talked with a smoker. I won't reveal his name, but Jimmy Smoke would suffice here.

During the conversation, Jimmy Smoke lit up several times, and it seemed that each flick of the lighter reminded him of how society was openly persecuting tobacco users. Smokers are relegated to distant patios. They can't smoke indoors anymore. They are surrounded by harpies that scold them. And now, some communities ban smoking outdoors, too!

"The air doesn't belong to anybody," he fumed.

After breathing the haze that had gradually come to surround him, and ruminating on how the smoke that had just circulated inside his lungs was now being inhaled into mine, I retorted, "The air doesn't belong to anybody; it belongs to everybody."

I couldn't tell whether my comment quieted or disquieted him, but for a moment he stood transfixed, and then went on to another topic. Many, I believe, have only a dim awareness that what they do to the air could affect anyone else. An ethics professor I know would chalk it up to infantile, self-centered thinking or inadequate social development.

The exchange with Jimmy was a microcosm; let's take a look at the mesocosm.

In June, a Des Moines developer by the name of Bobby Joe Knapp was sentenced to 41 months in prison for willfully violating the Clean Air Act. The prison term will be followed up by 2 years of supervised release, 300 hours of community service, and a $12,500 fine.

It seems that over a three-year period, Bobby Joe, owner and operator of the old Equitable Building in downtown Des Moines, carried out extensive renovations to the property that involved the removal of asbestos-laden pipe coatings and tiles.

Bobby Joe had his workers remove asbestos from the upper stories of the building and hide the material in an uncovered dumpster. The workers had neither protective equipment nor proper training. The tenants and customers who still did business on the lower floors had no idea of the dusty death that floated aloft.

Finally in 2009, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources became involved and fined Bobby Joe $500,000. What became of that fine is unclear as Bobby Joe has since been sentenced to prison and lost the Equitable in foreclosure.

Bobby Joe pled guilty, but asked to have his prison time reduced or eliminated completely. After all, he had done good things for people in the past. He was basically a good man and it was just a little air.

What Jimmy Smoke and Bobby Joe have in common is that they don't believe the air belongs to anybody. It's vast! There's so much of it! A little dust or smoke could do no harm.

Jimmy is now taking care of his wife, who – surprise! – is suffering from the first stages of lung cancer. He never realized that it was her air, too.

Bobby Joe thought he should be let off for spreading contamination throughout the streets of Des Moines, planting the seeds of mesothelioma in possibly thousands of lungs.

I don't feel the need to take this to the macrocosm, to large-scale polluters and politicians who want to eliminate the agencies that tell them, "The air doesn't belong to anybody; it belongs to everybody."

Large non-compliant corporations poison the air, too, on a far greater scale than my examples above, and I wonder why they do not end up either like Jimmy Smoke, forever grieving over his carelessness, or like Bobby Joe, griefless, still careless, but enduring its consequences?

Maybe it's the same in microcosm, mesocosm and macrocosm. Maybe it's just part of our lower human nature, infantile self-centeredness or inadequate social development to think, "The air doesn't belong to anybody."