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Article Last Updated: 09/30/2005 02:41:17 AM
Old Newark insulation firm one of 'worst' for asbestos
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
A former Newark insulation factory and 17 other defunct plants nationwide could trigger asbestos-related cancer and lung disease in former workers and possibly neighbors, federal health authorities said.
W.R.
Grace's factories processed shiny, golden vermiculite ore dug from a company mine in Libby, Mont., where more than 200 people are believed to have died prematurely from breathing a highly lethal form of asbestos.
Out of dozens of such factories in 22 states, only one fertilizer plant in Ohio handled more of the asbestos-contaminated vermiculite than the Newark plant named California Zonolite and Diversified Insulation.
In almost 30 years, workers at the corrugated aluminum factory in Newark baked 300,000
tons of the ore and bagged it for sale as building insulation and soil conditioner.
Federal health authorities say those workers, particularly ones employed from 1966 to 1983, were exposed to dust clouds of tremolite-actinolite asbestos fibers at levels several times ...
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