AboutMesothelioma.Net

Minnesota air pollution regulators are appealing a court decision that relaxed airborne asbestos testing requirements along the North Shore around the town of Silver Bay.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency contends that relaxing the air quality standards and testing requirements would be harmful to the health of residents of Minnesota.

From 1975 to 2007, Northshore Mining Company monitored asbestos particles in air emissions in the vicinity of its plant, comparing the numbers to asbsestos fiber counts in the vicinity of St. Paul, under federal court order.

Northshore Mining officials argued the testing requirement was outdated and unnecessary and tried for years to get the requirement lifted. Pollution control officials said the mining company should do an environmental study before dropping the air testing—a proposal the company disputed.

In 2007, State District Judge Kenneth Sandvik agreed with Northside that the air pollution agency had more than 30 years to justify the testing and the harm caused by the fibers.

In appealing the district court decision to the Minnesota Court of Appeals this month, air pollution control officials contend the air monitoring will help predict how many residents will succumb to asbestos-related diseases including lung cancer, mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung, and asbestosis, a chronic scarring.

State investigators are not sure whether asbestos fibers detected in hundreds of tests are released from taconite mining near Babbit, or processing at the plant in Silver Bay.

Still, University of Minnesota health investigators have detected an unusually high incidence of respiratory disease in the northern tier of Minnesota counties. The University of Minnesota now has underway a comprehensive three- to five-year, $4.8 million study of the respiratory health of taconite workers in northern Minnesota. An earlier study linked taconite miners who had developed mesothelioma to commercial asbestos exposure in the mines.

© AboutMesothelioma.Net. All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or republication of this article or any portion of its content is permitted but must include the AboutMesothelioma.Net link.

A Virginia Senate committee has rejected a piece of legislation that would have helped shield a Fortune 500 company from asbestos lawsuits, handing a defeat to a group that has been pushing similar legislation across the country.

This week, Virginia senators voted 13-2 to defeat the bill that would limit asbestos-related liability for Philadelphia-based Crown Cork & Seal, which employs 300 workers at two plants in Virginia. Company leaders had lobbied aggressively for the legislation and threatened to close down the plants if it didn’t pass.

Crown Cork & Seal, a beverage packaging company that invented the bottle cap, has faced hundreds of lawsuits for asbestos-related illness related to Mundet, a family-owned business Crown Cork purchased in 1963 for $7 million. Mundet had been involved in asbestos insulation for years, and Crown Cork assumed the liability as a successor company.

About 3,000 Americans a year die of asbestos-related respiratory diseases such as mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs. Millions more are still exposed to asbestos in building materials. Inhaling microscopic asbestos fibers can lead to cancer decades later.

Since the purchase of Mundet, Crown Cork has since been named in more than 300,000 asbestos claims and paid $600 million in expenses, according to the Washington Post. Since 2007, Crown Cork has spent more than $100,000 on lobbyists to get the bill passed and donated more than $100,000 to 46 Virginia lawyers or their political action committees.

The special bill would have limited the cumulative asbestos-related liabilities of successor companies such as Crown Cork to the fair market value of the gross assets of the company being purchased at the time of the merger or consolidation. It applied to company purchases made before 1972.

The legislation, championed by House Speaker William J. Howell, had narrowly passed the House in February. The American Legislative Exchange Council, which promotes limited government and free markets, has been pushing the bill in state legislatures across the nation since 2006.

Owens Illinois, a glass container manufacturer, opposed the bill, arguing that it would pay more in asbestos claims if Crown Cork was no longer held liable. Trial lawyers, manufacturers and some unions also opposed the bill.

© AboutMesothelioma.Net. All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or republication of this article or any portion of its content is permitted but must include the AboutMesothelioma.Net link.