Asbestos

Chemical maker W.R. Grace & Co. said Thursday it will adjust the estimated cost of settling its asbestos-related liabilities to $2 billion from the previous estimate of $1.7 billion. The increase reflects higher estimated values of a common stock warrant and deferred payment obligations to be paid to a trust to compensate personal-injury claimants and property owners under the company's bankruptcy reorganization. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2001, partly as a result of asbestos-related lawsuits filed by residents of Libby, Mont., and others.

A contractor began to take down a house slated for demolition as part of a highway upgrade project in Aberdeen Tuesday and then abruptly stopped when the crew found some hidden asbestos. The home, at the corner of Route 22 and Graceford Drive, is one of 18 to be razed along Route 22 (Aberdeen Thruway) between Beards Hill Road and the Aberdeen Proving Ground gate in conjunction with BRAC-related intersection improvements along the highway. The ranch-style home at 355 Graceford was slated to be the first home demolished, according to a Maryland State Highway Administration media advisory sent Monday afternoon.

John Thomas "Dick" Burda, a retired asbestos worker and former Howard County resident, died Sunday of lung cancer at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. He was 83. Born in Baltimore and raised in Edmondson Village, Mr. Burda attended city public schools. He served with the Marine Corps in Korea during the Korean War, where he was wounded. He was later awarded the Purple Heart. For 35 years until retiring in 1989, Mr. Burda worked out of Pipe Coverers' Union 11, which is now Local 24. The longtime Ellicott City resident moved to Ocean Pines 15 years ago. He was an avid golfer and enjoyed fishing and crabbing with his family.

The Orioles' team doctor, William H. Goldiner, tended to orange-clad ballplayers at the same time as he diagnosed thousands of blue-collar workers with asbestos-related illnesses whose cases were taken up by prominent lawyer and team owner Peter G. Angelos. Angelos' firm is seeking to revive thousands of dormant asbestos cases, but some of the underlying diagnoses are facing new scrutiny from defense lawyers. They say Goldiner's dual roles call the integrity of his work into question - a contention he says is "insulting and absolutely false.

Columbia chemical maker W.R. Grace & Co. reported profits Wednesday of $94.1 million last year, a big slide from 2011 that was driven by the company's $365 million non-cash charge for asbestos liabilities. But the charge, announced in January, was lower than expected for the fourth quarter. Wall Street seemed pleased by the earnings report and the company's rosier outlook for 2013 - Grace's stock was up nearly 4 percent in late morning trading, to about $75.40 a share. The company said it expects adjusted earnings before interest and taxes for this year will rise 8 to 12 percent over the same measure last year.

Melvin Rice of Baltimore asks whether it's better to remove or to side over the asbestos shingle siding on his house when vinyl siding is installed. Half of the contractors he's talked with recommend removing the shingles, but the others say to leave them and side over. Asbestos-cement shingle siding is common on houses built or re-sided from the 1940s generally through the 1960s. In general, it was a very successful siding material and continues to perform well on many houses. As it ages, the factory finish deteriorates, but even then the shingles can be painted.

The $15.9 million asbestos-removal and reconstruction project at Walbrook High School is continuing, with a contractor now replacing heating, ventilation, water and other mechanical systems.The school is due to reopen on schedule Sept. 1, 1991, when Walbrook students who have been temporarily sharing Southwestern High School are to move back into their own building.The building, designed for 2,500 students, was the subject of a major asbestos-removal project that got under way in March 1989.

A pool of about 250 potential jurors arrived yesterday morning at Baltimore's Circuit Court, facing the possibility of six months' duty on an asbestos case in the nation's largest consolidated trial.The case, a consolidation of more than 9,000 personal injury claims against a dozen major asbestos manufacturers, began with asbestos-injury plaintiffs briefly picketing the courthouse.The picket signs prompted a defense motion to throw out the whole jury panel on the grounds that it might have been prejudiced.

NEW YORK -- A federal appeals court overturned lat yesterday the compensation plan for the massive Johns-Manville Corp. settlement trust, which was created in 1988 to pay thousands of asbestos disease claimants."

Parents of the children at Sussex Elementary School in Essex are understandably worried. Late last month, officials closed the school after finding levels of asbestos fiber in a kindergarten classroom that were 30 times the amount considered acceptable. School officials' repeated attempts to allay fears are of little consolation: Parents, who know that related health problems do not show up for decades, have no idea whether their children were exposed to asbestos fibers and, if so, how much.

Columbia chemical maker W.R. Grace & Co. reported profits Wednesday of $94.1 million last year, a big slide from 2011 that was driven by the company's $365 million non-cash charge for asbestos liabilities. But the charge, announced in January, was lower than expected for the fourth quarter. Wall Street seemed pleased by the earnings report and the company's rosier outlook for 2013 - Grace's stock was up nearly 4 percent in late morning trading, to about $75.40 a share. The company said it expects adjusted earnings before interest and taxes for this year will rise 8 to 12 percent over the same measure last year.

Chemical maker W.R. Grace & Co. said Thursday it will adjust the estimated cost of settling its asbestos-related liabilities to $2 billion from the previous estimate of $1.7 billion. The increase reflects higher estimated values of a common stock warrant and deferred payment obligations to be paid to a trust to compensate personal-injury claimants and property owners under the company's bankruptcy reorganization. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2001, partly as a result of asbestos-related lawsuits filed by residents of Libby, Mont., and others.

An effort to revive more than 13,000 lawsuits filed by people who contend they were sickened by absestos was met with sharp objections Monday by lawyers for potential defendants. Plaintiffs' attorneys said consolidating some of the lawsuits would help people who have seen their cases languish for years. But defense lawyers told a Baltimore judge that the proposal — which made a fortune for the Law Firm of Peter Angelos previously — was unworkable and unfair. Opponents criricized the Angelos fim's suggestion for these cases, for people with a range of cancers but not mesothelioma, which has been closely linked to asbestos exposure.

John Thomas "Dick" Burda, a retired asbestos worker and former Howard County resident, died Sunday of lung cancer at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. He was 83. Born in Baltimore and raised in Edmondson Village, Mr. Burda attended city public schools. He served with the Marine Corps in Korea during the Korean War, where he was wounded. He was later awarded the Purple Heart. For 35 years until retiring in 1989, Mr. Burda worked out of Pipe Coverers' Union 11, which is now Local 24. The longtime Ellicott City resident moved to Ocean Pines 15 years ago. He was an avid golfer and enjoyed fishing and crabbing with his family.

An advocacy group filed a complaint Friday with the federal government alleging that a Baltimore-based company put hundreds of employees at risk by failing to protect them against asbestos. Alexandra Rosenblatt and Jonathan F. Harris, staff lawyers with the Public Justice Center, said WMS Solutions LLC required its employees, who typically earn from $11 to $14 an hour, to pay for medical exams, training and protective equipment such as gloves, goggles and respirators. If workers didn't pay upfront, the costs were deducted from their paychecks, according to the complaint.

An article in the Oct. 28, 1911 edition of The Argus reported on the determined effort by a local football club in a loss to a Naval Academy plebe team in Annapolis. The football team of fourth-class midshipmen of the Navy met the team of Catonsville Country Club, on the academy gridiron Wednesday and rolled up 15 points to their opponents' nothing. But the visitors made the plebes work hard to do it. The sailor lads not only outweighed the Catonsvillians, but they also displayed a greater variety of plays that kept the club boys guessing.

Officials from the state's largest union say they have filed a complaint with a state health agency on behalf of employees at the city's child welfare services office, 1510 Guilford Ave., citing reports of active asbestos found in the building over the weekend. Joe Lawrence, a spokesman for the Maryland chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said contractors worked on the building and found what they believed to be asbestos on pipes. But Brian Wilbon, deputy secretary for operations for the Department of Human Resources, said no contractors worked on the building this weekend, and that the building was inspected twice in the past year and no asbestos was found.

Early yesterday, a bus left the Steelworkers Hall in Dundalk carrying Lawrence Smith and 30 other people who have a stake in the nation's largest asbestos personal injury trial. They went to Baltimore Circuit Court to hear the closing arguments in the 4-month-old case, but the arguments were rescheduled for today.As Mr. Smith stood outside the courtroom in the Clarence Mitchell Jr. Courthouse, he said he and the others were not upset by the delay."They're not angry about it because they figured something like this would come up," said Mr. Smith, a 65-year-old plaintiff who claims to have contracted an asbestos-related disease during almost 43 years of work at the Bethlehem Steel Corp.

I sometimes wonder if we're getting a little too over concerned about the chemicals to which we are exposed ("City stumbles on lead paint cleanup" March 6). Lead, asbestos, cigarettes, mercury, etc. are now regarded as more dangerous than a rattlesnake in your bed. Somehow I have reached the age of 80, regarded by some as normal, have paid my bills and have raised normal children, but in my youth I used to rub mercury with my bare fingers onto coins to make them shine, smoked a pack of cigarettes per day while in the service, have lived in a house with asbestos insulation and still live with asbestos wrapped heating pipes, and used to spend my working days as an electronic repairman using lead wire solder as a toothpick or as a cowboy dangles a straw from his mouth, and committed numerous other misuses of methane, chlorine, etc. So how do we explain these 90-year-old individuals who have lived likewise, two pack a day smokers and such?