A Colorado man by the name of Michael Merit has allegedly jeopardized the health of the community around the city of Elizabeth through falsifying pre-demolition toxic substance reports. A grand jury has accused him of improperly performing air tests to determine whether the area was contaminated with asbestos fibers, as well as falsifying lab results to show that the tested environment was free of the dangerous substance.

Asbestos was used commonly through much of the 20th century in a variety of different industries for its fire and resistance as well as its remarkable insulating properties. Asbestos products in the form of pressed boards, blown wall insulation, pipe wrapping, roof tiles, flooring tiles and more are often discovered while renovating or demolishing buildings constructed before the turn of the century.

Nowadays, strict state and federally enforced restrictions and regulations apply to the safe handling and proper disposal of asbestos containing materials. Professionals who work with or around asbestos must be properly trained and certified in effectively protecting themselves and the local population against exposure to the substance through air or water contamination.

Exposure to asbestos fibers can cause mesothelioma, an aggressive and fatal cancer, and several other dangerous diseases and respiratory ailments. The microscopic, hair like fibers can enter the body through accidental ingestion or inhalation, and easily slip past the body’s normal protection against foreign debris due to their unique shape. Asbestos fibers often pass through the lung or intestinal walls and settle into a protective soft tissue known as the mesothelium. Once lodged in the mesothelium, asbestos fibers cause aggravation and scarring that can result in the development of malignant tumors.

According to the grand jury, Merit lied about his experience with asbestos remediation and claimed he was properly licensed for asbestos testing in order to gain employment with a demolition company. The falsified results from his improperly conducted tests were submitted to gain the state’s permission to demolish several mobile homes in Elizabeth city. Three mobile homes were demolished before the state halted the work following a tip that the tests were improperly conducted.

Qualified Colorado officials conducted follow testing on the demolition site to assess the damage and contamination. After the demolition of just three mobile homes, enough asbestos had been exposed for the state to declare an “emergency circumstance involving the sudden discharge of a hazardous substance.”

Prosecutors from the Office of the Attorney General of Colorado will pursue the case against Michael Merit in an Ebert County district court.

Naturally occurring asbestos (NOA) is causing residents some concerns in El Dorado Hills, California. An investigation was recently completed by the EPA that was started a few years ago as a result of public concern about asbestos contamination. The worry arose as due to planned development in the Oak Ridge region of El Dorado Hills, where naturally occurring asbestos would need to be broken up and handled in order to commence the project. While few studies exist regarding naturally occurring asbestos, exposure to fabricated asbestos fibers has been conclusively linked to mesothelioma as well as a host of other aggressive and fatal diseases. In Oak Ridge, the planned development projects could cause a local high school to become contaminated with asbestos dust.

The investigation was recently closed and a decision was made stating that no further research is necessary. The EPA admits that breaking up the asbestos that occurs naturally around El Dorado Hills will increase residents’ exposure to the substance, but claims that further evidence is necessary to link this specific form of asbestos to the harmful and fatal diseases normally associated with the mineral.

“We don’t think,” said Jill Dyken, a federal environmental health scientist, “the exposure is high enough that we would be able to measure elevated rates of diseases in the community.”

Residents are not altogether comfortable with the decision to close the investigation, and fear that development is certain to proceed despite the dangers it could pose to people in the area.

The problem is that NOA hasn’t been studied enough to make any accurate conclusions. The El Dorado Hills county website discusses the presence of NOA throughout the region, and states “When rock containing NOA is broken or crushed, asbestos may be released from the rock and may become airborne, potentially causing a health hazard.” Additionally, the American Cancer Society claims that around a third of mesothelioma cases are attributed to non-occupational exposure, and traditional research in the arena of asbestos exposure demonstrates that short term studies such as the one performed by the EPA are fairly ineffective.

Nadine Lauren, a spokesperson for a local group that opposes development in the area believes that the EPA’s claim that further evidence is required to necessitate a full scale study is simply “a curtain a lot of people are hiding behind.”

Moving forward with construction projects in El Dorado Hills may open the door for further development of asbestos contaminated land throughout California. While the EPA is remaining aloof about the issue, the county’s environmental management director says that El Dorado Hills plans to work with federal officials to improve public education concerning asbestos exposure.

A victory in the High Court of the United Kingdom which awarded a former Michelin employee compensation for exposure to asbestos dust could mean the beginning of a huge influx of such litigation. Roy Ibbs, a retired pip fitter, won £23,300 in total compensation from Michelin Tyre Plc. due to the respiratory disease he is currently suffering from as a result of asbestos exposure in his former workplace.

According to Colin McCail QC, Mr. Ibbs’ barrister, the retiree was frequently exposed to clouds of asbestos dust between 1969 and 1985. The court decided that the decay of his health and specifically the asbestosis that leaves him continuously out of breath can certainly be ascribed to the conditions in which he worked.

In addition to current respiratory complications, Mr. Ibbs’ likelihood of developing mesothelioma, a terminal cancer caused by asbestos exposure, is greatly increased.

The Judge mentioned that he would have awarded Mr. Ibbs’ a considerably higher compensation were he not suffering from other ailments that could not be blamed on asbestos exposure. The existence of several separate health issues could certainly have aggravated and promoted the development of his asbestosis.

Mr. Ibbs had reportedly been offered £20,000 by Michelin’s lawyers to settle out of court, but opted to pursue legal action. At the time of his employment with Michelin, Mr Ibbs was one of several thousand employees who worked in similar conditions. The success of his case could very well encourage a flood of others to pursue a similar course.

Mr McCaul, Mr Ibbs’ barrister, said “In order to develop asbestosis, you need to have been exposed to a significant amount of asbestos dust. [Mr. Ibbs'] exposure seems to have come from maintenance work on pipes layered with asbestos. There must have been a significant amount of dust at the factory. It’s probably fair to say there were former colleagues exposed to the same conditions.”

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) is planning on implementing some changes to their regulations regarding the safe handling of asbestos during remediation projects. The changes will focus on improving the safety of both the laborers performing the asbestos removal, and the client whose home or business is undergoing the abatement process. The ADEQ believes that by both requiring more extensive tests of longer duration and lowering the costs for asbestos abatement certification and other asbestos related trades, standards can be improved without damaging the businesses of those performing the work. The new regulations should take effect in about three to six months.

The ADEQ as well as other environmental and health organizations around the world are concerned with reducing airborne asbestos at work sites to decrease the hazard to human health that it creates. Microscopic asbestos fibers can be accidentally inhaled or ingested in areas with high contamination, and can cause a variety of serious and even fatal diseases. Mesothelioma, an aggressive and terminal cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, claims the lives of some three thousand Americans every year.

Kendall Shelby, an Arkansas resident, owns an air quality company in Fort Smith that monitors asbestos levels in the air during asbestos removal projects. “If it’s a small, short project, you know a clearance check is all we do,” Shelby said, “anything of larger size we’ll try to throw in a few days of air monitoring just for the benefit of the client.”

Regulations regarding the safe handling of asbestos tightened quickly in the late 1980′s following the EPA’s Asbestos Ban and Phaseout Rule. After the EPA’s attempt to completely ban the substance was overturned in 1991, the regulations began to loosen some throughout the remainder of the decade. This ebb and flow of legal requirements concerning asbestos remediation has a direct effect on the companies in the industry.

“Back a long time ago we had 10, 15 guys in the field and now most companies are fairly small,” said Shelby. “As of now I have just three people out there.”

Concerning the newest regulations announced by the ADEQ, Shelby said “[it will] probably cost us an additional five percent across the board to do it the way the new regulations will require us to do it, which is something I think we can live with.”

While it may be necessary for Shelby and others to hire new staff or make other changes to adhere to the new regulations, adapting to change seems like something companies in the asbestos remediation industry are somewhat used to. “We did this already,” Shelby said, referring the changes in the late 1990′s, “so it’s not any big change to some companies.”

Carbon nanotubes are incredibly strong, microscopic, thread like synthetic fibers with a potentially vast range of applications in technology industries. Nanotubes are constructed by linking carbon atoms together in a specific configuration or structural modification of the element known as an allotrope. A carbon nanotube could be visualized as a sheet of paper rolled into a cylinder, where the paper is constructed of single carbon atoms configured in a specific allotrope. With length to diameter ratios of carbon nanotubes reaching 132,000,000:1 at present, their potential applications in nanotechnologies seem virtually limitless. Everything from microscopic mechanical parts, electrical circuits and motors, to microscopic high yield batteries and complicated electronic components could theoretically be constructed from carbon nanotubes.

Unfortunately, carbon nanotube’s thread like structure closely resembles the needle like form of asbestos fibers, which are known to cause a variety of serious and even fatal diseases such as mesothelioma. Airborne asbestos fibers can enter the body easily through inhalation or ingestion, and due to their tiny size and odd shape cannot be expelled by the body’s normal defenses against foreign debris. The fibers slip right through lung and intestinal walls, and eventually become entangled in the mesothelium, a protective tissue that surrounds our body’s vital organs. The resulting scarring of the mesothelium can create malignant tumors that cause death in just twelve to eighteen months.

The use of asbestos products in both residential and commercial construction was normal throughout the twentieth century, and the resulting contamination is responsible for some three thousand deaths annually in the United States alone. After nearly a century of evading critics and covering up key medical evidences, the asbestos industry is just now beginning to come under fire for its hazardous practices and its sabotage of asbestos related studies and medical investigations.

A series of studies performed in the United Kingdom showed that the injection of certain kinds of nanotubes into the abdomen of mice caused the same type of inflammation that is traditionally recognized as a pre-mesothelioma symptom in asbestos contaminated patients. Some fear that the dawn of large scale nanotube manufacturing could be the beginning of yet another epic battle against a massively profitable and dangerously negligent industry.

In the United States, the EPA has recognized the potentially harmful similarities between carbon nanotubes and asbestos fibers, namely their long, thin, thread like shape. The agency has begun taking measures to specify which types of nanotubes could pose potential health hazards.

While the EPA has begun exhibiting some interest in the nanotube industry, it’s important to remember that as of yet no research has conclusively linked carbon nanotubes to respiratory or other health hazards in humans.