You are currently browsing Christina Morgan's articles.
I recently started a new job, and since I don’t know the surrounding neighborhood well yet, I’ve been taking different routes through it every morning on my way to the office. Yesterday, steps from the White House, I approached a small construction site, shuffling to escape the unmistakable roar of a jackhammer on concrete. But then something stopped me in my tracks. The morning sunlight shining brightly down on the workers revealed the swirling clouds of dust emanating from the trembling sidewalk.
In all the rigmarole of the holiday season, you might not have heard about the consumer safety hazard associated with Christmas lights (or noticed the fine print warnings on their boxes).
It’s no secret that lead is used in light strings’ polyvinyl chloride insulation to prevent deterioration and to guard against fire. But what is a new development this year is the revelation that handling the wiring while you “deck the halls” may result in significant lead exposure.
A mere nine months after the National Academy of Science told OMB to junk its junk science proposal, the Bush administration is at it again. On Wednesday, OIRA administrator Susan Dudley and OSTP’s associate director Sharon Hays sent a memorandum to all executive agencies. The memo advised that “after carefully evaluating [the] constructive recommendations from the NAS, as well as feedback from rigorous interagency review, and public comments” OMB decided not to issue a final version of its risk assessment bulletin, but instead, to issue a memorandum “to enhance the scientific quality, objectivity, and utility of Agency risk analyses and the complementary objectives of improving efficiency and consistency among the Federal family.”
Translation: Fine, we’ll nix the bulletin, but if you think we’re just going to walk away without getting our two cents in, you’ve got another think coming.
On March 23, 2005 a series of explosions ripped through BP’s Texas City refinery. The disaster claimed the lives of 15 and injured many more. (You can read some of the press coverage here and here.)
Here are a few interesting tidbits fresh from the courtroom where BP lawyers are working to discredit the claims of four workers injured in the blast. These particular cases are the first to reach the courtroom, as at least 1350 of 3000 claims filed against BP have been settled behind closed doors.
In case anyone had any doubts that BP knew of warning signs, read on. Read the rest of this entry »
In the last few days, we have all been in a state of shock over the situation in Utah. Like several of my colleagues, I have been praying for the trapped Utah miners and their families and friends. I have been tuning in to the press conferences with mine owner Bob Murray, and I have been refreshing CNN’s website over and over again to get the latest news on the rescue efforts.
Today, I walked passed a yellowed newspaper article from the Washington Post we hung on the side of a filing cabinet 20 months ago, in January 2006.
Does anyone need to worry about asbestos fibers released into the air following the explosion of an 83-year old Manhattan steam pipe last Wednesday? Hopefully not! So far, officials are saying that while asbestos fibers were detected in solid material near the site, they were not found in air samples collected on-site. Still, with the respiratory illnesses of WTC responders fresh in everyone’s mind, a Staten Island Advance columnist reported that Wednesday’s responders were quick to don masks and to start asking questions about potential health effects. Read more about the response to the incident from the L.A. Times and Newsday.com.
You may already have read about a series of chemical explosions that occurred this morning at the Barton Solvents plant near Wichita, Kansas. An estimated 650,000 gallons of an “array of chemicals” were on fire, sending flames up to 150 feet high and a steady stream of thick black smoke into the air.
When I heard Christie Whitman was going to testify before the House Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties subcommittee , I hoped that if she were pressured by the Bush administration to hide her concerns about the air quality at Ground Zero and in lower Manhattan, that today might actually be the day she’d “come clean” about it. I wasn’t expecting her to go so far as to say she was wrong, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe, I thought, we could officially add this debacle to the growing list of ways in which the Bush administration has put politics before the public’s health.
Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday, May 20th, 2007, marked the first anniversary of the Kentucky Darby Mine Explosion, which claimed the lives of five good men: Jimmy Lee, Amon Brock, Roy Middleton, Paris Thomas, Jr., and Bill Petra. Read the rest of this entry »
During the April 24, 2007 House Workforce Protection Subcommittee hearing, “”Have OSHA Standards Kept up with Workplace Hazards?”, the Bush administration’s record in promulgating occupational safety and health standards was a hot topic. (“With all of those [rules] that have been cast aside,” asked an indignant Congressman Hare (D-IL)— “what’s OSHA been doing?”)
Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) stated: “To date, the Bush administration has implemented 22 standards, with more than year left in the term,” and that therefore, “the pace of regulatory rulemaking has not changed” since Bush took office. This caught my attention. 22 rules? Read the rest of this entry »
An article in yesterday’s Financial Times reveals that prior to the deadly explosion at its Texas City refinery, BP successfully lobbied against environmental regulations that could have mitigated– if not prevented– the catastrophe from having taken place in the first place.
Read the rest of this entry »
Mike Hendricks from the Kansas City Star notes in a recent article that all-too-often, trench collapses happen when “work crews take shortcuts because they’re in a hurry or think a trench box interferes with the job they’re doing.”
While it may be true that workers are “cutting corners” to finish the job they are assigned to do, blaming the workers ignores the 800 pound gorilla in the room.
Read the rest of this entry »
Christopher Thomas needed to make some extra money. The 51-year old welder—also a husband and father of two—had begun work in the GMD Shipyard in Brooklyn Navy Yard about a week before. It was mid-morning on a Saturday—his day off—but Thomas had come into work anyway. Read the rest of this entry »
The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) announced today that deceased Montana miner Les Skramstad has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Alan Reinstein Memorial Award in honor of his “unwavering commitment to justice and asbestos disease awareness.” In spite of his own lengthy battle with asbestosis and mesothelioma, Les remained a true hero– devoted to protecting others from the hazards of asbestos.
Read more about his life and journey here.
Some of you may recall Mike Casey’s compelling exposé in the Kansas City Star (Wayback Machine version here) regarding OSHA’s outrageously low fines for safety violations– even those directly responsible for serious injuries to or even deaths of unsuspecting workers. While OSHA is supposedly committed to levy fines “sufficient to serve as an effective deterrent to violations”—the punishment rarely fits the crime. According to former OSHA assistant secretary Jerry Scannell, (1989-1992), the current fines are “almost like chump change with some companies.”
Read the rest of this entry »
