Inspectors

Prompted by a water heater accident that severely burned a 7-year-old girl at a Baltimore elementary school in June, state auditors have identified significant deficiencies in the way Maryland safeguards boiler and hot-water systems in public buildings.Statewide, 70 percent of such systems are inspected by private, state-licensed contractors who are employed by insurance companies, but Maryland rarely checks on the quality of their work, the auditors concluded.In addition, the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation does not adequately monitor the qualifications of private inspectors, the auditors concluded.

When Sandra Guthorn went to the supermarket last year, only a few days before she was to settle on the $370,000 house she and her husband, Lester, planned to grow old in, she heard a rumor that couldn't be true.The house has water problems, a friend told her. But Mrs. Guthorn had already had the house inspected, and the inspector cleared the Green Spring Valley house again on a final inspection before the deal closed. "The inspector told me it was a well-maintained, fantastic house," said Mrs. Guthorn.

Restaurant inspections have changed over the past decade: Gone are gruff inspectors ticking off demerits based on a 100-point scale.Today's inspections are about cooperation. No longer thorns in the side of restaurant operators, inspectors are seen as partners looking out for the public welfare."We've gone from irritant to teammate," said Anne Arundel County registered sanitarian Charlie Stinchcomb.An inspector for 26 years, Stinchcomb thinks the newer approach the county has used for several years, a method developed by Pillsbury Corp.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq denied yesterday that it had failed to tell the United Nations about hidden weapons and invited CIA agents to lead U.N. inspectors to suspected arms sites. Amir al-Saadi, an adviser to President Saddam Hussein, said at a news conference that questions about Iraq's arms program had been dealt with in its declaration to the United Nations and in discussions with U.N. inspectors working in the country. Accusations by the United States and Britain that the Dec. 7 declaration contained omissions and fabrications "were based on old rehashed reports" from the previous round of "discredited" U.N. arms inspections, al-Saadi said.

WASHINGTON -- The Agriculture Department suspended with pay yesterday an inspector and a supervisor who monitored the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. plant responsible for 143 million pounds of beef being recalled, a union official said. Stan Painter, chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, said the department told him it "had obtained information warranting placing" the two employees on administrative leave. The suspensions are the USDA's latest response to rules violations at the Chino, Calif.

WASHINGTON -- Iraq's interference yesterday with a United Nations inspection team trying to seize substantial evidence of that country's nuclear weapons program has increased the likelihood of U.S. military action to force Baghdad's cooperation on arms inspections, U.S. officials said."

WASHINGTON - Thirty-one floors above New York's East River, Hans Blix sits atop a United Nations agency with a skilled staff, plenty of money, a clear mission - and virtually nothing to do. Blix heads the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), created in 1999 to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and set up a system to prevent Baghdad from reacquiring them. For the past two years, he has striven to put together the most professional, best-prepared arms-inspection apparatus possible.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The two chief United Nations weapons inspectors indicated they were encouraged last night after meeting with Iraqi officials about sharply raised expectations for what Iraq must produce to prove it no longer has weapons of mass destruction. Their visit came two days after President Bush declared that "the game is over," suggesting that there was little Iraq could do, at this late moment, to deter an American attack. Still, the inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who advocate a longer inspections mission as an alternative to war, appear to see hope, but only if Iraq makes a serious move toward compliance with U.N. resolutions in the talks this weekend - offering harder evidence, for example, to back its claims that it no longer possesses anthrax or the VX nerve agent.

WASHINGTON -- Three veteran Federal Aviation Administration inspectors told lawmakers yesterday that their agency supervisors looked the other way while Southwest Airlines neglected to inspect planes as required and continued to fly them even after discovering cracks in some of them. The inspectors said their FAA supervisors knew of the problems but had discouraged them from pursuing the safety problems or addressing problems within the agency, even threatening to relieve them of their duties.

Maryland has about 300 earthen dams monitored by state inspectors. Like the 65-foot-high Need-ville Dam in Rockville, where torrential rain forced the evacuation of local residents this week - some of them are pretty large. They include the 99-foot-high Little Seneca Lake Dam in Montgomery County and 118-foot-high Druid Hill Lake Dam, according to state and federal Web sites. But an earthen dam can be just as safe as a concrete structure, experts say. "If you've got a good site with a good foundation, earthen dams are a good way to go," said Larry Roth, a civil engineer who has designed dams and is deputy executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers.