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Livermore Lab Workers May Be Exposed To Toxic Dust

Frank Young said...

Livermore Lab Workers May Be Exposed To Toxic Dust

"Seward said the laboratory is surveying 160 buildings looking for beryllium contamination. Already, they've found some startling results: 20 buildings with levels above acceptable, and a few with "more extensive" contamination.

And now they're assessing how many more workers were exposed: So far, 250 have been identified as having past exposure to beryllium and another 350 are being watched."

December 19, 2008 11:52 AM

Comments

Anonymous said…
the construction workers are all employees of labor only AKA GSE; they are suing the lab and the boys from rechtel for criminal negligence; I was one of the lab employees that was exposed to beryllium and one of my co-workers has full blown chronic beryllium disease; 321C is just the tip of the Ice berg, a lab in building 298 beryllium was found on ever surface including the a/c ducts and roof fans; doe is currently investigating the beryllium incidents at the lab.
Anonymous said…
It gets better! The DOE Office of Enforcement will be here early next year to take a few bucks out of LLNS hide. If you thought it was hard to get real work done before just wait until you see the protocol implemented after it starts actually costing "management" money.

They really ought to just close everything down except NIF and Terascale pay the remaining employees a two year severance and send all the real work to Los Alamos. The labs time has passed. This country still needs a good weapons lab not two mediocre ones!
Anonymous said…
hmmmm, shooting at LLNS on this one doesn't seem to really fit. Didn't most of this lack of control, testing, and/or identification, as well as the employee and contractor exposures take place on our beloved UC's watch? It didn't just happen in the last year, or could I be wrong?
Anonymous said…
"hmmmm, shooting at LLNS on this one doesn't seem to really fit."

Let's see, Bechtel came through and did audits to see what was going on with the lab. They even wrote up our building for having goose dropping in front of the entrances. They assumed the responsibility for a lot more more money than what UC was getting, so I don't feel too broken up about LLNLs plight.

UC was an absentee landlord both at Livermore and LANL. You want to blame someone, you blame the people who worked at the lab. We ran the labs and UC gave us some benefits making us think we were UC employees.

Either through ignorance (we didn't know better) or through a misplaced sense of urgency (the job must go on damned the employee) we may have brought this on ourselves.
Anonymous said…
I got a letter with a questionnaire today. I will get tested. It seems, that I have worked in almost every building that they are concerned about.

User of daily inhaler.
Anonymous said…
Does anyone know what law firms are handling any lawsuits over this?
Anonymous said…
we were told some time ago by our division leader that two workers had symptoms of berylliosis and were not informed until some months had passed even though, in one case, medical was fully aware that the guy was sick and didn't tell him. I am amazed it took this long for what has happened (regarding exposure to beryllium) to hit the press . They still have yet to get the whole story though it seems.
Anonymous said…
How about a list of the buildings involved please?
Anonymous said…
http://be_prevention-int.llnl.gov
lists sampled and contaminated buildings. It is an internal web site.
Anonymous said…
There is also a civil lawsuit against a longtime lab employee.
Anonymous said…
TY for the URL. But an internal site is utterly useless to someone who is retired or otherwise not working at the lab.

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