The Town of Fowler, located in Indiana, has been awarded a $25,000 grant to remove asbestos from the currently closed Fowler Elementary School. The school has been closed since 2006 when its students and the students from a different nearby elementary were consolidated into one new elementary school. The future of the school is still uncertain. One thing that is certain though is that the asbestos removal will prepare the older portion of the school for eventual demolition. Due to the dangerous nature of asbestos, the school can not be demolished until the asbestos is removed. Both the Town of Fowler and the American Legion Post 57 have expressed interest in purchasing the property and re-using it. The Town wants to create a senior center and the American Legion wants to use the building for new offices. Both plans would involve demolishing at least part of the building. If you or someone you know has been exposed to asbestos or diagnosed with mesothelioma, contact the Mesothelioma Lawsuit Attorneys of Williams Kherkher at 1-866-950-9000 to discuss your legal options and to schedule a free initial consultation.

Following a meeting of representatives from CBS, Planet Toys, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), and Public Justice, the CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit was recalled due to concerns of asbestos contamination. The meeting occurred to discuss discrepancies between the testing conducted by the ADAO and Planet Toys. In the end, they decided to pull all of the kits from shelves because of the chance that some had been contaminated. The ADAO found that the tested kits from lot AD100 did contain asbestos while the independent tests conducted by CBS and Planet Toy found that their samples were not contaminated. Preferring to be safe rather than sorry, the toy was pulled. The CSI Fingerprint Examination kit was determined to have white powder in it that was contaminated with asbestos above 5%. This is well above the legal limit that is permitted under current government regulations. If you or someone you know has been exposed to asbestos or developed mesothelioma, contact the Mesothelioma Lawsuit Attorneys of Williams Kherkher at 1-866-950-9000 to discuss your legal options and to schedule your free initial consultation.

Winona State University, located in Minnesota, is facing seven different fines for violations all relating to asbestos. State OSHA officials say the fines could total $24,500 but the school is planning on contesting the violations. The fines are all tied to violations related to the removal of asbestos from dormitories and other locations across campus this past year. The biggest complaint is that the university failed to take precautions to protect workers when insulation containing asbestos was removed and replaced. The violations posted on campus included violations related to plumbing, water softener replacement, air monitoring, lack of filtration and collection systems for contaminated air, lack of protective clothing for the workers, nothing posted concerning the presence of asbestos-containing materials, and a lack of records detailing asbestos removal from 1995 to 2005. If you or someone you know has been exposed to asbestos or been diagnosed with mesothelioma, contact the Mesothelioma Lawsuit Attorneys of Williams Kherkher at 1-866-950-9000 to discuss your legal options and to schedule a free initial consultation.

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has completed a new analysis of available information about 58 mine workers who have previously been diagnosed with mesothelioma. The analysis showed great variation in the length of time the workers were employed in the industry, that they worked at locations all across Minnesota’s Iron Range, and that they were not diagnosed with mesothelioma until decades after they first started work in the mines. The 58 miners – all of whom are men – are part of a group of 72,000 people who worked in the state’s iron mining industry between the 1930s and 1982. MDH has been tracking the occurrence of mesothelioma in this group. Unusually high rates of mesothelioma have been reported among men in northeastern Minnesota since the late 1980s, raising questions about a possible relationship between respiratory disease and mining work. Those questions include the possible role of mineral fibers found in taconite dust as a cause of mesothelioma. Among the findings of the new MDH analysis: * Almost one-fourth of the 58 workers were employed in the industry for less than one year, while over a fourth were employed for 30 years or more. * All but one of the miners who developed mesothelioma were diagnosed 30 years or more after they first went to work in the industry. In five of the cases, the time lag was 60 years or longer. * The miners worked at locations scattered across the Iron Range, including all but one of the seven mining operations that were active during the period when they were employed. The exception – Inland Steel – employed only 618 of the 72,000 miners in the group being followed by MDH. * Only three of the 58 miners ever worked at the former Conwed plant in Cloquet, which manufactured asbestos ceiling tiles between 1958 and 1974. The Conwed facility is believed to have contributed significantly to elevated mesothelioma rates in northeastern Minnesota, accounting for 25 cases of the illness among the 5,200 people who worked there.

The Environmental Protection Agency has stepped up its enforcement of asbestos recordkeeping. In Maryland, the number of citations for violations has exploded. While the agency was averaging less than one citation a year from 2001 through September 2006, they have given out 16 citations since September 2006. While the number of citations has gone up dramatically, none of these citations are related to exposure to asbestos, the carcinogenic material. Instead, they are all tied to a lack of records on behalf of various school systems in the state. The schools are required to maintain an asbestos management plan but these plans are often forgotten by many busy principals. Asbestos is believed to be found in every school across the state that was built before October 1998. Despite this, there has not been a report of exposure to asbestos since the schools have been required to maintain management plans. If you or someone you know has been exposed to asbestos or diagnosed with mesothelioma, contact the Mesothelioma Lawsuit Attorneys of Williams Kherkher at 1-866-950-9000 to discuss your legal options and to schedule a free initial consultation.