Gazette Reporter
Nearly four miles of asbestos - the carcinogenic fiber widely used until the 1970's and now blamed for thousands of deaths and illnesses - is targeted for a huge 10-year, $10 million removal project at the Kenneth A. Kesselring Site.
Deterioration of asbestos insulation was described as a potential health hazard in both government and General Electric Co. documents as early as spring 1986 - but it was not until fall 1988 that the removal plan was conceived.
Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory "did not follow through on their commitment for long-term permanent corrective action," said a June 1988 U.S. Department of Energy document acquired by the Schenectady Gazette.
To the IUE Local 301 AE (Atomic Energy), the plan is a tardy response to years of complaints over a hazard that the union says has caused asbestosis and cancer in about a dozen former unionized employees.
Like many large builders of th era, KAPL used tons of asbestos in the 1950's as the Kesselring site was constructed on 3,900 acres of farmland in West Milton, and as the Knolls site evolved along the banks of the Mohawk River in Niskayuna.
Asbestos, a naturally occurring mineral substance serves as insulation in walls and on lagging of pipes that occupy most rooms and buildings - from restrooms to the labyrinthian, heat-exchanging networks within naval nuclear power plants.
But as of last year at Kesselring, "indoor piping and components . . . have not been maintained or repaired and exhibit many areas of deterioration," said the asbestos removal plan, dated October 1988.
"The condition of this piping mandates immediate repair action and subsequent removal," the document said. A copy of the plan was obtained by the Gazette from a source.
It targets for removal approximately 20,000 linear feet of asbestos that is deteriorated where maintenance is expected and where exists the potential for personnel exposure. The document does not make clear how much more asbestos beyond the 20,000 feet exists at the Kesselring site.
"We've had grievances over and over," said Douglas W. Allen, business agent for the 360-member Local 301. Some of it they just let go so bad that in 1986 it was actually falling off the piping.
"You have asbestos actually laying in the roadway. Coming right down, in the middle of the pedestrian ways, right in the middle of doorways to offices. Water and ice were bringing it down in the springtime.
"KAPL wouldn't do anything about it. They just kept totally ignoring us," said Allen, 41 a former Marine and a 16-year KAPL employee.
"Their response was no problem. No immediate hazard," he said. "Even though you've got guys full of asbestos and we're finding more and more of them and more people are questioning it now."
Allen's assertion that asbestos is deteriorating and poses a health hazard is substantiated by the 19-page removal plan, and by correspondence from a former official of Schenectady Naval Reactors, the U.S. Department of Energy unit that oversees KAPL. GE runs KAPL under a contract with the DOE.
"Asbestos could be introduced into the environment because of the badly deteriorated condition of the lagging (insulation)," said Donald J. Hamilla, the former SNR director of radiological and environmental controls, in a letter to Allen dated April 1986.
"There is a potential for unnecessary exposure," Hamilla wrote. "Falling lagging poses a hazard to personnel walking underneath the pipes."
More than two years later, in June 1988, Hamilla responded to Allen's continuing complaints with a second letter that said KAPL "did not follow through on their commitment for long-term permanent corrective action on other damaged lagging at the Kesselring site."
Four moths later Hamilla's letter, in October, the removal plan was in print.
However, an SNR investigation found no evidence that the federal exposure limit for asbestos had been exceeded, Hamilla wrote in both the 1986 and 1988 letters. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration limit for asbestos is 2 fibers per cubic centimeter, tightened from 2 fibers per cubic centimeter in July 1986.
The standard was set in 1971 at 12 fibers per cubic centimeter, and was lowered to 5 fibers in July 1972 and to 2 fibers in July 1976, according to the Asbestos Information Association of North America in Arlington, Va.
In July, KAPL completed a small-scale program to secure damaged asbestos on outside piping at Kesselring, according to Allen and documents.
The October removal plan recommended KAPL begin the wholesale removal "concentrating on repair of damaged asbestos in occupied office/working spaces and high traffic areas, (where work needs) to be implemented quickly."
The removal plan says it would take 10 years for a 12 member team to execute th plan. The plan envisions the work proceeding in two shifts each day. Equipment was expected to cost $200,000.
Allen said he understood, from documents and discussion, that the union would be engaged for the task.
"We got approval from SNR for 25 more people and we were all set to go until I wrote the complaint form on Knolls (the Niskayuna laboratory)," Allen said. "Come to find out a fourth-level (GE) manager was pissed off at us because we wrote the DOE form and complained to the Department of Energy so he said screw the union, we're going to subcontract it out."
Allen learned that, he said, in early January.
"If you're going to use subcontractors you can believe it's going to cost the taxpayers millions," he said. "They tried to subcontract a job out once (four years ago) at KSO - just the outside piping - and the contractor wanted $8 million. Just for the outside piping. And SNR said no way."
Allen said he believed the local's apparent exclusion fro the asbestos removal wa another piece of a larger effort by GE to weaken the union, which represents fewer than a tenth of KAPL's 3,200 employees.
"They figure if they can keep us small, they can keep us quiet," Allen said. "Except it doesn't work that way. The smaller they make us, the angrier they make me."
Questioned on the project, KAPL said it originally planned to use KAPL personnel to remove the asbestos. "Recently, KAPL has also considered subcontracting this work to qualified asbestos removal firms which are experienced in performing large-scale asbestos ripouts.
"A combination of these two choices is also being considered," KAPL said in a written statement. "The final choice will be based on technical and economic considerations."
KAPL declined comment on Allen's allegations that hiring a subcontractor for the work was in retaliation for the union's safety and health complaints to the DOE.
In its statement, KAPL estimated the Kesselring job would cost $1 million per year for up to 10 years. Allen estimated a subcontractor's bill for asbestos removal at both the West Milton and Niskayuna sites would be between $40 million and $50 million.
Asbestos problems at the Niskayuna laboratory is not as severe as at Kesselring, Allen said. "At Knolls the piping on the outside hasn't started falling off yet," he said. "You can see some cracks and deterioration where eventually it's going to and you've got a couple of pipes that are busted loose."
While a removal plan exists for the West Milton site, KAPL has in place an abatement and repair plan for the Niskayuna lab. In response to a complaint by Allen, an SNR investigation found areas of minor damage to asbestos materials. But the damage was small, "not a widespread problem," said a November 1988 letter from A.R. Seepo, Hamilla's successor at SNR.
Industry experts said such costly, wholesale removal plans as described for the Kesselring site are uncommon.
"I'm not aware of a company that just says we've got asbestos in the building and we'll remove it regardless of our finding that there's no significant increase in airborne fibers and the limit is not being exceeded," said John Biechmann, vice president of the Safe Buildings Alliance in Washington, D.C., which represents former manufacturers of asbestos insulation products.
"I am aware of companies that renovate their buildings and if there is asbestos present they might make some decision to abate," Biechmann said. "The federal government, through the GSA (General Services Administration), is finding they're able to work by taking some mitigation measures and doing a renovation program without actually doing a removal."
Biechmann said asbestos is hazardous only in large doses, and quoted Lee Thomas, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, as saying only damage and disturbance to asbestos which releaes fibers into air inhaled by humans is hazardous.
The use of asbestos was largely discontinued in the 1970s after numerous medical studies linking it to cancer and other diseases among employees. The controversy and subsequent lawsuits bankrupted many companies some of which were accused of withholding knowledge that asbestos was a health hazard.
As of 1986, more that 35,000 claims had been filed against manufacturers, according to the Washington Legal Foundation. Experts predict manufacturers' liability will be somewhere between $4 billion and $87 billion, the foundation said.
GE does not stand to lose financially in the litigation crisis. Plaintiffs do not sue a facility owner or operator, but the manufacturer or supplier of asbestos, said Robert C. Weisenberger, an Albany attorney.
A former Kieselring employee, James Leary of Saratoga Springs, is among Weisenberger's approximately 105 asbestos clients.