IN THE MATTER OF: ) ) Public Meeting on Asbestos ) ) Pages: 1 through 206 Place: Charlottesville, VA Date: June 20, 2002 MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION ASBESTOS HEARING PANEL IN THE MATTER OF: ) ) Public Meeting on Asbestos ) ) Holiday Inn 1901 Emmet St. Charlottesville, Virginia Thursday, June 20, 2002 The parties met, pursuant to the notice, at 9 a.m. APPEARANCES: REBECCA SMITH, DEPUTY DIRECTOR DAVE LAURISKI, ASSISTANT SECRETARY DR. CAROL JONES, PROGRAM MANAGER JIM LYNCH, OFFICE OF STANDARDS AL DUCHARME, SOLICITOR'S OFFICE CARLOS MOSLEY, COAL ORGANIZATION SHARON AINSWORTH, TECHNICAL SUPPORT DEBRA JANES, OFFICE OF STANDARDS P R O C E E D I N G S MS. SMITH: Good morning. My name is Rebecca Smith. I'm the Deputy Director of the Office of Standards, Regulations and Variances for the Mine Safety and Health Administration. On behalf of Dave Lauriski, who is our Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health, I welcome you this morning to this public meeting. With me also this morning are several other individuals from Mine Safety and Health. On my immediate left, Dr. Carol Jones, who is our program manager for our metal/non-metal program; Jim Lynch, who is from our Office of Standards in Arlington; Al Ducharme, who is from our Solicitor's Office in Arlington, Virginia. On my right is Carlos Mosley, who is from our Coal Organization; Sharon Ainsworth, who is from our Technical Support Organization; Debra Janes is from our Office of Standards also. This is the seventh and last of seven public meetings that we have held on this issue. The previous meetings were held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Spokane, Washington; Vacaville, California; Canton, New York; Phoenix, Arizona; and Virginia, Minnesota. The initial announcement of these public meetings was contained in the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published on March 29th, 2002 in the "Federal Register." A subsequent "Federal Register" notice, published on April 18th, announced that the date of the Charlottesville, Virginia meeting was changed to June the 20th, and a public meeting would also be held in Phoenix, Arizona on June 5th. These two "Federal Register" notices are available to you in the back of the room. The purpose of these meetings is to obtain information from the public that will help us evaluate the following five issues: (1) whether to lower our asbestos permissible exposure limit; (2) whether we should replace our existing fiber analysis method, referred to as phase contrast microscopy, with a more sensitive method which is known as transmission electron microscopy; (3) whether we should implement safeguards to limit take-home exposure; (4) whether our field sampling methods are adequate, and how our sampling results are being used; (5) what is the likely benefit and cost impact of any rulemaking action we would take on these five issues. These five issues were discussed in the March 29th Federal Register document. The scope of the issues we're addressing with this Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is limited; therefore, this public meeting will be limited to hearing public input on these five issues I just mentioned. In the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking we were asked -- we asked questions relating to each of these five issues. We're particularly interested in responsive information related to these questions. Now, I'd like to give you some background which has led us to be here today. In 1980, we requested that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health -- NIOSH -- investigate health problems at vermiculite operations around the country because our sampling data at that time showed higher than average asbestos exposures among the miners. The results of the NIOSH study were published in 1986, and verified our sampling results that indicated high occupational exposure prior to 1974 at a vermiculite operation in Libby, Montana. The highest exposures were in the mill. The NIOSH report showed that in 1974 the mine began to use a wet process to concentrate vermiculite in the mill, and occupational exposures dropped markedly. The asbestos-exposed miners employed at the vermiculite mine in Libby, however, inadvertently carried the asbestos fibers home on their clothes and in their personal vehicles, thereby continuing to expose themselves and family members. At that time we encouraged the operators to change from dry to wet processing material, and also to reduce take-home contamination by installing showers, and requiring the miners to change clothing before leaving the site. In November of 1999, a Seattle newspaper published a series of articles about the unusually high incidence rate of asbestos-related illnesses and fatalities among individuals who had lived in Libby, Montana. Because MSHA had jurisdiction over the mine, the Department of Labor's Office of the Inspector General began an evaluation of MSHA's role at the Libby mine. The findings and recommendations of the Office of the Inspector General were published in March 2001. Three of the recommendations would require additional rulemaking by MSHA. And those issues are the subject of this public meeting today. The Office of Inspector General recommendations were: (1) that MSHA lower the existing permissible exposure limit to a more protective level; (2) that MSHA use a more sensitive method, transmission electron microscopy, to quantify and identify fibers in our samples, rather than the phase contrast microscopy method currently used; and (3) that MSHA address take-home contamination from asbestos. As you know, our current asbestos standards for coal mining and for metal and non-metal mining is two fibers per cubic centimeters of air. And these standards have been in place from the mid 1970s. Recently, MSHA adopted new asbestos sampling techniques, and we have increased the scope of sampling for airborne asbestos fibers at mines in an attempt to better determine miners' exposure levels to asbestos. Our efforts have included taking samples at all existing vermiculite, taconite, talc, and other mines to determine whether asbestos is present, and at what levels. Since the spring of 2000, we have taken almost 900 samples at more than 40 operations employing more than 4,000 miners. Our preliminary review and analysis of these samples show very few exposures occurred during the sampling period which were above the OSHA eight-hour time-weighted average of point 1 fiber per cubic centimeter of air. Our sampling results are now available to the public on our web site at www.msha.gov. Also, the sampling results will be made part of the rulemaking record if we move forward with rulemaking. The issues surrounding asbestos exposure are important to MSHA, and we will use the information provided to us at these public meetings to help us decide how to best proceed with these five issues. So we want to hear public view. These public meetings will give mine operators, miners and their representatives and other interested parties an opportunity to present their views on these five issues that we are considering for potential rulemaking action. The format of this public meeting will be as follows: Formal rules of evidence will not apply, and this meeting will be conducted in an informal manner. Those of you who have notified us in advance of your intent to speak, or have signed up today will make your presentations first, unless there is an arrangement to the contrary. After all scheduled speakers have finished, others are free to speak. When the last speaker has finished, then we will conclude this public meeting. If you wish to present any written statements or information today, please clearly identify your material. When you give it to me, I will identify the material for the record by the title as you have submitted it. You may also submit comments following this meeting, but please submit them by June 27th, which is the close of the comment period. Comments may be submitted to us by electronic mail, fax, or regular mail. But please note that the MSHA headquarters office has moved. The address is different than the "Federal Register" notice you picked up in the back. But in the back of the room there is a document that shows our new address, fax, electronic address, et cetera. A verbatim transcript of this meeting will be available upon request. If you want a personal copy of this transcript, please make arrangements with the court reporter, or you may view it on our web site. It will be there and available within five days from today. The procedures have been the same for each of these seven public meetings. We will begin with persons who have requested to speak. To ensure that we get an accurate record when you speak, please give your name, spell your name and the organization. Our first speaker this morning is Mr. Stephen Lucas. Good morning, Mr. Lucas. MR. LUCAS: Good morning. Thank you, Mrs. Smith. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Stephen Lucas, S-T-E-P-H-E-N, Lucas, L-U-C-A-S. I'm a farmer. And I'm a fairly -- almost a neighbor of the Virginia Vermiculite plant in Louisa County not too far east of here. And I come here -- I kind of hoped to give a personal -- a different kind of view from the -- I know it's a lot of agency folks and a lot of commercial folks. And I hope to give a little personal information. I'm also a member of Historic Green Springs, an organization of owners of land adjacent to the mining area. My wife's farm has been -- my wife has farmed the land near the mine since 1959. So it's been awhile. And when the information came out about Libby -- and, you know, there's volumes of information from the "New York Times," from all these places I'm sure you're aware of -- it scared her to death. Her parents both died -- both her parents and her grandmother all died of lung cancer within about three years of each other -- not because of vermiculite, but because of smoking. But just the thought of lung cancer and the things that are in those reports scared her to death. And it scares me some, too. And it scares me because of my neighbors and friends who work at the plant, or near the plant -- have worked at or near the plant. Folks come through town in their pickup trucks, dusty clothes. I see them on the street, at soccer games, baseball games, Little League games. We see them. They bring the vermiculite dust with them. And so, you know, I look -- to address the issues of the five that you listed, I say I want to know where the question is. If we're really trying to save the public from what happened in Libby, if we're really trying to do the right thing, these issues that you bring forth don't seem all that difficult. Lowering asbestos limits, why not? We have the technology to do it. Why is there a question if should do it. The fiber analysis method, shouldn't we be using the best available scientific -- there is the sound science argument that comes up so much in politics today. What better thing of sound science is there than to use the best available information? I talked about the take home. I talked about some of these other things. I just want to briefly say that folks, I thank you for coming out here and hearing what we have to say. All I ask for you to do is do the right thing. Help prevent Louisa County and these other places from becoming the next Libby. Like I said, it scares us to death of the potential it could happen. I just want to thank you so much for hearing us, and just ask you to do the right thing. Thank you so much. MS. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Lucas. We appreciate your comments. Do the panel members have any question of Mr. Lucas? Thank you very much for coming. MR. LUCAS: Thank you very much. MS. SMITH: Our second speaker is Donald Gazaille. I probably didn't do that right. MR. GAZAILLE: You came closer than most. My name is Donald Gazaille, G-A-Z-A-I-L-L-E. And I'm from Trevilians, Virginia. And I'm on the immediate side of the Virginia Vermiculite mine directly across the street. And I appreciate the opportunity to present my views on asbestos exposure related to mining operations. I am particularly concerned about a statement contained in MSHA's March 29, 2002 "Federal Register" notice on page 15137. It says, MSHA's recent field data show that none of the samples collected exceeded OSHA's eight-hour time-weighted average of 0.15 per centimeter of air when analyzed using the TEM method. Considering the low fiber levels observed, what would be an appropriate agency action? First, I think it is important to acknowledge that MSHA only conducts inspections once or twice per year at a mine. Secondly, when the inspector is doing inspection work, working conditions are probably not the same as a typical day at the mine. I suspect when the inspector is present, the mine is in good condition. Therefore, I don't think it's appropriate for MSHA to draw conclusions based on a limited number of unrepresentative samples. MSHA says none of the samples collected exceeded OSHA's standard. I'm suggesting that these samples are not a good indicator of fiber levels at the mine. MSHA should not draw conclusions from the results of a handful of samples when a mine operates 300 to 600 shifts each year. If MSHA really wants to know what the typical conditions are at a mine or group of mines, it should target these mines the full scale propaganda for several weeks at a time every couple of months. We live on the off-site. Contamination is a concern of ours from MSHA, not only from its employees leaving the mine with contaminated areas, but the transportation of materials off the mine, and the loading of the materials -- the raw materials -- at the site. If you were to ever to go up and down Route 22 and across right along our driveway and across from our house is where the trucks haul this material out of there, and see the gray trees on both sides of the road, and the gray all over the grass, you'll know where the contamination is going. We're very concerned. It's totally inadequate. It doesn't take a lot of fibers to kill someone. The standard should be extremely high, and make us feel at least a little more comfortable that we can still live in the area. Thank you for your consideration. And we hope you'll keep the immediate public in mind. Thank you. MS. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Gazaille. Panel members? Thank you very much for coming. Our next speaker is John Stamberg. Mr. Stamberg has admitted for the record a document entitled, "Testimony pursuant to Mine Safety and Health Administration on Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Measuring and Controlling Asbestos Exposure, June 20, 2002." MR. STAMBERG: My name is John Stamberg. You have the report that I am submitting to the record. Basically, a little bit about my background: I'm a civil engineer for the University of Maryland with a master's degree from Stamford. I've been in the asbestos business -- in the vermiculite business -- for over 40 years. I've taken courses in asbestos, asbestos abatement management and identification at Drexel, Tufts, Georgia Tech, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and others. My relevant experience is heavily in the commercial retail inspection and abatement of asbestos under EPA and OSHA regulations. I've worked in 35 states, Canada. And I'm also familiar with the vermiculite industry as far as mines, expander operations, soil mixtures, that type of facilities. I've been active in 21 states with respect to vermiculite. I've also examined ores from five different states, evaluated the different vermiculites from them, as well as several different foreign countries. I'm here on behalf of Virginia Vermiculite, and I've got a number of points I want to make. The first point -- and I'll be brief -- is the three points that you choose to regulate to lower the permissible exposure level to .1 fiber per cc, the use of TEM versus PCM, and the control of take home are just three elements of what should be a full program similar to EPA and OSHA. What defines a lot of the elements? Some of the things that are not clear from these: One is you've got to be properly ready to identify what really is asbestos. This isn't a problem when you have commercially-made asbestos products like you encounter in OSHA and EPA. They usually mix good grade commercial asbestos with granular or non-asbestos material. And the assumption that any fiber is asbestos is reasonable in that kind of context -- that kind of mixture -- in natural soils that breaks down. So the level that they're interested in is a much different level than we're talking here. So MSHA should fully address in their regulations specific methodologies geared to mining, earth products, rock products that can clearly identify asbestos-containing materials. And in their tests they should have procedures and nomenclatures that clearly identify what the tests mean -- not just 3:1 and then assume it's asbestos, as you do with commericial products that only have tar and asbestos, or vinyl asbestos, or ingredients that are clearly identified in concentrations that are easy to identify. Air sampling, it's the same issue there where in the air testing the assumption is that these particles in commericial building products are asbestos. Reasonable for that industry; not reasonable for this. So that assumption that the air test anything 3:1 is asbestos is not correct. I'll go into that a little bit later. Then the other thing, the program should have some focus or targeting of where you should do the analysis. OSHA has procedures for negative exposures, use of objective data in other ways to aid or help target the extent, type and place for air monitoring; in other words, in places where there is no asbestos, you don't have to do elaborate monitoring. So this is what I suggest for an overall program. Going to the second point: One is that Virginia Vermiculite has been under the scrutiny and under the concern of asbestos since 1976 before they were mining in the public hearings and zoning. This has continually been a source of discussion. And it really stems from the Libby situation. And right now I'd like to just take a few minutes to do a one-on-one on geology. EPA Region 10 with their studies from the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology classified vermiculite. And vermiculite is not a single thing; it's a group of things with different origins, different chemistries. They classify vermiculite by three types. Type one is the type in Libby. Type two is often found in North Carolina and some other places. And the Louisa deposit is one of the ones that is type three. If you look at my Figure 1, I've got the EPA report references, as well as the source rocks, the rock that mixed with it to form a primary sheet silicate that weathers under moisture and then becomes either vermiculite, hydrobiotite or hydrophologopite. These are different subvarieties of vermiculite with different origins, different chemistries. Then not only is the origin of the rock, chemical makeup, and the way it was metamorphized or altered are different, the temperature and pressure of formation makes a difference. My Figure 2 addresses that. These changed silicates, depending on the temperature and pressure can be diopside, quartz, or one of the many varieties of crystalline tremolite. Crystalline formation can be any of a number of things. It can be anywhere from massive, isolith or fibers tremolite. So there's a number of things. Also, the same deposit you can get quartz, diopside and these type of minerals. And it depends on the temperature and pressure. What exists at Virginia Vermiculite is recently they've got into a situation not with the main deposit, but where the two rocks were twisting, turning and folding on each other. They have slip sheets. In those slip sheets, which are about a 16th of an inch to maybe a little bit over an inch, the temperature and pressure in that slip sheet has created veinlets that have every one of these chemistries in there. There are some small areas where there is true asbestos, as well as bysolite, massive tremolites and quartz. And this stuff you can get right off the edge of it, and that veinlet doesn't exist. You get in the veinlet, and the chemistry can vary by the foot. It just depends on the local temperature and formation. So what Virginia Vermiculite has done is tested -- what they do is there's the MSHA's bulletin P00-3 where it says how to isolate and not over mine this stuff. Virginia Vermiculite follows that. Then the material that they take and mine and send to the process, and their final product they test -- the United Kingdom has banned asbestos. They have developed a test that's 100 to 1,000 times more accurate than the U.S. tests for bulk material because of their ban. This material -- we send these materials that are mined and sent to the process plant as well as the product on a routine basis to this more accurate test, which is good to about 10 parts per million. We have those results in Appendix 1. And we have been doing that ever since the third quarter of 2000 to make sure we get the accurate, most up-to-date test on that. So what we find is that the test for country that has banned asbestos finds no detectable asbestos. And those are attached in there, and support a lot of the other tests that have been done. In doing this program, Virginia Vermiculite has done several things. One is OSHA has a concept called a competent person that is trained to identify, locate and understand asbestos. They brought an international expert in, in both vermiculite an asbestos, and trained the miners, engineers, supervisors to identify this or anything that is suspect to that. So they developed competent people. These competent people then flagged the material. And it's either not mined or isolated per P00-3, the MSHA criteria. Recently, the MSHA people came in and inspected. They took three samples of this flag isolated material. And one of the three samples tested positive for asbestos, two were not. So it's an indication that people at VVL who are competent or were trained this way are well trained and err to the cautious side. Okay. Another thing that Virginia Vermiculite has adopted from OSHA is the negative exposure assessment. So when they were doing the mining and isolating of the veinlets that were suspect material, they had an EPA OSHA licensed certified testing firm come in and see if there was any exposure over the .1 during the movement of that material. There was not. Then, also during that procedure, the same consultant measured upwind, downwind and across the property to see if anything was going across property lines. And they found nothing but background levels of dirt and material. The EPA came down and tested seven homes for asbestos; in other words, the consultants was a snapshot during an activity that had concern. And EPA going to the homes and collecting dust in and around the homes is more a result of long-term accumulations. They found no asbestos in those seven homes that they tested. VVL has also done a couple of things that are not required of it, even if they were under OSHA. They sent all their employees -- except one refused -- to the University of Virginia Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine for the OSHA-style respiratory x-ray series of medicals. And the conclusion was that there were no Virginia Vermiculite-related occupational issues. The whole details of the medical exam and other details are not privy to us, but we do get this -- or, you know, Virginia Vermiculite did get the letter that there was no occupational-related health effects. They've also purchased a HEPA vacuum cleaning system that can vacuum the clothes. And that's a high efficiency particulate air systems that filters out 99.9 plus percent of asbestos fibers used in the asbestos abatement industry. They have this to be available for cleaning clothes if the people want to do that. They find it's also useful for cleaning up the labs and some dusty areas around the office. It's just a cleaning tool. So they have those things whether they need it or not. They've gone ahead and pursued those. Next, I'd like to take a couple of minutes to talk about the bulk testing. I've touched on that. The accuracy of the U.S. test 600/R-93/116 is 1 percent. It's accurate, and it can detect things down to .1 percent. This is 10,000 parts per million, or 1,000 parts per million is its stated accuracy for ability to notice. The U.K. system, which is MDHS77, is accurate to .001 percent, or 10 parts per million. And that's the test that's in Appendix 1 that they have been doing. Air tests: The PLM test is schizophrenic. Or PCM test is very different in results, because under the OSHA procedure you can do differential counting. So if you see a spider's leg, an obvious fiberglass particle, vegetable particle, the microscopist at its discretion or its lab procedures can eliminate those from the count. This procedure is really inaccurate when you have soil and rock particles that -- many of which are 3:1 in the visible range, and are not asbestos. So this differential counting of 3:1 and reporting it asbestos may be good for OSHA when you're abating fireproofing in a building when that's the only particle of that size, shape or configuration. That definition includes many, many different types and chemistries of particles. So that's using PCM as a screening tool. And going to something more accurate, TEM can eliminate some of the particles because it has higher resolution. You can see cleavage fragments, arrowheads, non-parallel things, platelets that are on their side, and the whole variety of things. In using private labs using just TEM, VVL has found that 93 -- or 83 to 95 percent of the particles are eliminated. So that 83 to 95 percent of the particles just with TEM can be eliminated. Some of the MSHA count sheets that we see eliminate only 30 to 70 percent. Again, this is the accuracy difference, or inaccuracy problems with differential counting. NIOSH 7402, which is the TEM procedure that's most appropriate, states that the presence of substance may warrant the use of more powerful diffraction pattern, morphology analysis before positive identification could be made. So even with TEM you've still got to go to other techniques to identify it because these particles can have the same chemistry. To illustrate the mistakes that could be made in this area, Dr. Chatfield of Ontario Research reviewed the samples and tests done by EPA in their garden products containing vermiculite material. He found that all but Libby were free from asbestos. They had identified diopside, hornblende, and clearly non-asbestos forming minerals as asbestos incorrectly. They also, in that counting procedure, ignored EPA's definition of asbestos fibers. And 99.9 percent of the fibers fell outside the clear EPA definition without more powerful diffraction or morphology kind of identifications. So there's tons of mistakes that could be made. And one of the things MSHA should consider is narrowing the size range that really fit asbestos in its definition of fibers so these cleavage fragments, blades, Acular arrowhead type of material is eliminated. And it should develop nomenclature that clearly identifies what the test means, what does it represent. So any time you see soils with a 3:1 aspect ratio, it doesn't automatically get reported as asbestos. So they need a lot of improvement in that. In OSHA EPA, they didn't need that. Okay. So I'll go off of that point to another point about take-home asbestos. Again, my familiarity with OSHA, they have an elaborate protective clothing clause, 29 CFR 1926.1101(i). It's in the report. When there is a PEL or excursion exceedence, then you fall under that, or if you do work of a certain nature, their definition of asbestos over 25 feet or 10 square feet for which you haven't done this negative exposure assessment, then they've got elaborate procedures on launderer notification, transport labeling inspection, and many procedures in that. It's a good law. It's a good regulation. And MSHA should consider that as a pattern that evolved over the years. Going to another point on TEM versus PCM, the 900 data points when we went to the web site, only 178 of the 900 were reported. Of that, only 24 were side-by-side phase contrast versus TEM. Of that, 0 of the 24 side-by-side tests showed TEMs that were -- none of them were higher than the PCM. So the PCM seems to be picking up everything that has been presented. None of them -- there was no TEM, whether there was violations or not, were higher. So by circumstantial evidence, even though it's very thin, there was no indication that TEM's additional magnification is necessary. In my chart -- or Figure Number 4, there's an understanding why. The chrysotile fibrils are suboptical, okay? But the fibers are not because it's like a frayed rope or a bundle of glass rods. To disseminate all these fibers into individual fibrils is very exacting, very difficult, and almost never done. So the optical microscope, particularly the amphiboles, can pick up and see the problem. And so that was the case. I mean, even at Libby the PCM test was exacting for that. So my comments are that the scientific or circumstantial evidence to switch from PCM to TEM is not there. Also, MSHA -- and I've got the exact quote in Figure 5 -- the long-term historical epidemiology as a disease correlation has not been with the small fibers. Potts, Stanton, Lippman and those people indicate that the particles have to be at least as a wavelength of light to be health-oriented. So you would have to establish that these smaller particles, submicroscopic -- or sub wavelength in diameter -- are a health disease, which that has not been established. And again, the only fibers that are going to fall basically in that range is ultra-fine amphiboles and the individual chrysotile fibrils, which is extremely rare in situations. So again, PCM may be a screening tool or a primary thing, and then you go to differential counting. TEM is maybe just one of the things that can be used. And there could be many others. With respect to health -- that's my point six -- there is several things I want to mention on that. There is a fairly recent document put out by the Department of Health and Human Services, "Toxicology Profile for Asbestos Update." And that was in September 2001. They use a different concept than the EPA OSHA linear model where the -- they go directly proportionate to that. The concepts here are no observable adverse effect levels, less serious lowest observable adverse health effects -- which means significant dysfunction. Asbestosis would be an example of that. Then it got serious lowest observable adverse health levels -- and those are the ones that attack our biological system, cancer and things like that. So with those concepts, if you go to Figure 6, I've taken the highest and lowest value presented in that report, as well as the median and the average. For the less serious impact -- you know, significant dysfunction -- at the .1 it would be 586 years to 380 years at the .1 exposure level before you would get the less serious impact. And then for the serious impact at the .1 you would be in the 700 to 1,800 years. So even though the .1 seems to be achievable, it may not be based in health, in which case the rationale for the .1 is achievability as opposed to health. So I think this study is something very worthwhile to look at. And these are respiratory illnesses. As far as gastrointestinal, they couldn't find animal studies to support that. And Gamal and some of these other people have not found the connection to gastrointestinal or proved that. In fact, McDonald, in his Exhibit 410.6 of the OSHA regulations discussion, found that there was no excess number of deaths from cancers of non-respiratory sites at Libby. So if Libby is one of the things that is creating anxiety, the gastrointestinal side is not there. Then point seven: The reporting accuracy of description testing procedures, methods and what they mean, MSHA needs a lot of improvement in that so things aren't taken out of context. And then the report you have. If there's any questions, I'd be glad to respond to them. MS. AINSWORTH: Yeah, I have one question, if you could clarify. Initially, I thought you were saying that you thought PCM wasn't the best analysis method because differential kinds by different laboratories produced different results. Then you said the TEM was good, but you needed an additional besides TEM diffraction work. MR. STAMBERG: Yeah. Normally what's done in EPA and OSHA is you do the total 3:1 count. MS. AINSWORTH: Right. MR. STAMBERG: If you assume that it's all asbestos and you're fine, within standards or clearance standards -- or standards set by the hospital, school or whatever -- then even with that assumption they don't do further analysis. Oftentimes, their first way of differential counting is to go to TEM, which still does not differentiate true asbestos from other similar amphiboles with different crystalline structures. In the asbestos industry where you're dealing with pure asbestos in products, you really have to go beyond that. In mining, you have a plethora of products and chemicals and material that's in that 3:1 range that you have to go to additional techniques by infringement, extinction kind of things, morphology, Addison in his things has morphology characteristics of asbestos. He's got five of those. If you meet three of those, you can assume it's asbestos. So those type of things are rarely used in EPA, HERA, or OSHA work because of the nature of the business. Those type of differential countings with probably very necessary in mining and mining products -- rock, horn, and that type of thing -- to truly get at the true asbestos fibers. MS. AINSWORTH: So you're suggesting that, and not TEM? MR. STAMBERG: But with PCM as a primary tool. If need be, start differential counting by TEM, more exacting methods by fringement -- you know, additional optical, chemical, x-ray diffraction techniques to narrow down the particles to see whether they're true asbestos or not. True asbestos almost never occurs in single individual fibers. It's created in bundles. And when you have it, you have the bundles, and you may have some chafe or things that crack off the bundles, but you have the bundles which are usually large enough to look at. The difficulty is when you get to particles below the diameter of the wavelength of light, some of the light optical conditions when you can't identify some of these submicron particles with some of the light optical techniques. So you have to go look at the bundles or masses to see what those might be. MS. AINSWORTH: Didn't you make a statement that you said the additional magnification of TEM was not necessary? MR. STAMBERG: No. That's helpful because you can see non-parallel fibers, and you can see the morphology of the particles that are smaller than a wavelength of light -- generally two microns or finer. You can see a more definite image and decide whether it's a cleavage fragment or not. So TEM can be one of the mechanisms to differential count from a PCM test. DR. JONES: Good morning. I just want to clarify one thing you said. When you use the TEM and see the things -- the fibers of a much lower diameter, was it your evaluation of the literature you found there was no information saying they had elevated hazard from those? MR. STAMBERG: The studies by Potts, some of the information in the Lippman studies, show that the submicron particles are not the ones that are associated with health risks. I referred back in my file stuff that I can provide for you and show that the Potts demographic and particle size versus health risk. DR. JONES: Were you also saying -- this is just for clarity -- when you have the fiber bundles, the things you see by PCM, does it require milling or some major action on those to generate the fibers? MR. STAMBERG: No. Once you are -- once the bundles are in the optical range, the polarized slides, the curvature and other morphological visible signs are there so that the bundle can be fairly readily identified. DR. JONES: But does that break up -- MR. STAMBERG: What? DR. JONES: Do the bundles break into fibers readily when you view that? MR. STAMBERG: No. No, they don't. MS. SMITH: Mr. Stamberg, can you elaborate somewhat on -- you mentioned the HEPA vacuum cleaner you use. Could you elaborate on that in terms of how it's used, the section of that to be used by miners, and the costs associated with that system? MR. STAMBERG: Yes. The high efficiency particulate air systems come in a number of configurations. When they're doing asbestos abatement in a school, commericial, or even a home situation, it's a three-stage filter, each one getting finer and finer that will take out virtually all the asbestos-size fibers. So when they do negative air abatement -- say they seal this room -- they put it on negative air, which means they suck the air out so there is leakage in, not out. Standard technique. Then they use these filters. Then these filters also come as vacuum cleaners -- large vacuum cleaners or systems where they use that same thing, where the exhaust is virtually clean. And then you can use that to clean the clothes, clean the laboratory, and that type of thing, and then dispose of the filters as required. In the asbestos industry for miner work, a lot of the companies have these HEPA vacuum cleaners for cleaning not only whatever spilled, but they clean their clothes with that. So those systems are available. Virginia Vermiculite has one of those, even though they haven't detected asbestos in their ore or their product. MS. JANES: Good morning. I was just wondering, could you submit your various references to the record as -- like Mr. Lippman's study, the Potts study? MR. STAMBERG: Yes. I'll xerox those and send them by tomorrow, or by Monday. MS. JANES: You're very close to our new location. MS. SMITH: We have a question from another MSHA member who is sitting in the audience. MSHA MEMBER: Yeah. Mr. Stamberg, could you clarify for me also along the same lines as Sharon Ainsworth, that 3:1 ratio, did you say it was not appropriate in the OSHA differential method? Since OSHA uses a differential method as part of -- MR. STAMBERG: No. The OSHA EPA method starts with 3:1 on PCM. Then you start differential counting and say, What is this chunk, okay? And then there's a whole series of things which are in my Figure 5 of how you start sorting that out. A cellulose or vegetable fiber looks like a swirled piece of grass, and usually is easily identifiable. Cellulose fibers, insect material, fiberglass is very translucent under the green light. It can be eliminated. Every microscopist and their expertise vary. When you're paying $6 for these tests you haven't got the Addisons, the Chatfields and the Krons doing this. In England where they have banned asbestos, they have had to develop a method and microscopists with the skills that are consistent and detailed enough to do that differential counting at a higher and more sophisticated level. MSHA MEMBER: Okay. And on the comment you made about the results being on the web site, 178 of those shift-weighted average results represent probably four or five samples taken in consecutive series that led up to that shift-weighted average compliance of -- MR. STAMBERG: Okay. So you didn't do 900 shift-weighted averages. You did 178 shift-weighted averages which may comprise 258 separate subtests. MSHA MEMBER: Right. MR. STAMBERG: Oh, okay. So that wasn't apparent from -- MSHA MEMBER: We did do a lot more than 178, but a lot of those were excluded for quality control purposes. We betted a lot of those samples out because of some concern because they are compliant sample results. MR. STAMBERG: Yes. MSHA MEMBER: So they got a lot of scrutiny. MR. STAMBERG: Mining, because it has a lot of other material other than just the asbestos, can be blinded, or the samples get fogged up and you get a lot of, say, particulate debris from diesel engines and stuff like that. So that's part of the concerns that you need to have good, detailed procedures that reflect mining and mining operations. MS. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Stamberg. We appreciate you coming. Our next speaker is Robert Glenn. MR. GLENN: Thank you very much, Ms. Smith. I'm Robert Glenn. I'm president of the Industrial Minerals Association of North America. For the record, Glenn is G-L-E-N-N. My training is the field of industrial hygiene. With me today is Mr. John Kelse, K-E-L-S-E. John is the Director of Risk Management for the R.T.T Vanderbilt Company, and a member of our Safety and Health Committee. The Industrial Minerals Association of North America -- and I'll shorten it to IMANA -- appreciates this opportunity to appear at this public meeting to provide comments to MSHA on measuring and controlling asbestos in the mining industry. IMANA is a recently-established trade association serving the interest of six industrial minerals; ball clay, feldspar, industrial sand, mica, soda ash and talc. Thirty-seven founding producer member companies are presently members of IMANA operating more than 200 mining facilities, and employing another 5,000 workers. Although no IMANA company is engaged in the production or distribution of asbestos or asbestos-containing products, IMANA recognizes the critical importance of sound policy and science in regard to the development and application of any standard involving asbestos. Our comments today draw from the experience of our member companies. We will be brief in our comments today, and confine our remarks to some of the questions asked by the agency in its announced notice of proposed rulemaking. We will submit more comprehensive written comments and materials to the rulemaking record. Regarding the asbestos permissible exposure limit, IMANA believes MSHA should lower its eight-hour time-weighted average permissible exposure limit for asbestos to 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter, and its short-term exposure limit to 1.0 fibers per cubic centimeter over a sampling period of 30 minutes. This, of course, would be consistent with the OSHA standard. The 1994 revised OSHA asbestos standard noted that reducing the exposure limit to 0.1 fibers per cc would further reduce but not eliminate significant risk of asbestos-related disease. The excess lifetime cancer risk at that level was estimated to be 3.4 deaths per thousand workers exposed for a working lifetime. With the exception of the one asbestos mine surveyed by MSHA, MSHA's recent field sampling data showed that none of the samples collected exceeded OSHA's eight-hour time-weighted average of 0.1 fibers per cc when analyzed by transmission electron microscopy. While preliminary, these results indicate that exposure to asbestos in mining are low, and that the cancer risk in miners should be less than the OSHA risk estimates, since cumulative working lifetime fiber per cc years in non-asbestos mining will be lower than the cumulative exposures in the OSHA risk estimate. We wish to make it very clear that we make this recommendation to adopt the OSHA PEL because of the need to be prudent in the face of uncertainty in the interest of regulatory consistency, not because of any agreement on our part with the risk estimate adopted by OSHA. A voluminous body of scientific evidence establishes that asbestos exposure increases the risk for asbestosis, for lung cancer, and for mesothelioma. And while asbestos is perhaps the most studied occupational agent, there remains a great deal of uncertainty and controversy regarding its effect and acceptable levels of exposure. While in our opinion it is not in the interest of any of the affected parties involved in this rulemaking to debate the adequacy of the OSHA asbestos PEL, MSHA should be aware and should keep in mind that uncertainties and controversies do exist. Some of the complexities in designing exposure response relationships and risk for asbestos-related disease include uncertainties and exposure estimates in studied workers both quantitatively and qualitatively, extrapolation to low levels from epidemiological data with high levels of exposure, variability among estimates of risk from various studies, inconsistent or inappropriate adjustment for the possible confounding effects of cigarette smoking, possibility of differences in potency among different types of asbestos, and inadequate description and definitions of asbestos exposure in terms of asbestos mineral type, and characteristics of fibers that may lead to both the inclusion and exclusion of inappropriate fibers leading to aerogenic exposure method. Regarding the analytical method, the IMANA believes that phase contrast microscopy should be continued to be used as a screening tool at the lower PEL of 0.1 fiber per cc, but only if fiber characteristics more specific to asbestos are applied, such as screening approaches that ensure actual or probable asbestos fiber exposures observable by light microscopy are recognized and then confirmed by more discriminating analytical methodology such as electron microscopy. We believe this can be done, and that it will control the unnecessary expenditure of time and money for the TEM work. In the ANPR, MSHA asked for comments regarding the advantage and disadvantage of exclusive use of TEM over the agency's current use of phase contrast microscopy as a screening tool for samples that may contain asbestos. Of course, the major difference of the two methods is the magnification or resolution limits associated with each method. TEM commonly uses magnification of 20,000 times for asbestos fibers, while PCM methods use 400 to 450 times magnification. Based on magnification alone, it would seem TEM is the preferable method; however, the agency seems to be aware of limitations and problems surrounding the sole use of TEM for identification and of PEL compliance determination for asbestos by the questions posed affected parties in your "Federal Register" announcement. A specific question for MSHA -- from MSHA -- asks for information on the availability and costs for commericial TEM analytical services. We have not attempted to survey commericial laboratories regarding capabilities for TEM services, but we are certain that we would find that there are far more laboratories equipped with light microscopes able to analyze fibers of 450 magnification using phase contrast elimination than there are laboratories with TEM scopes capable of asbestos identification at 20,000 times. Likewise, it stands to reason that there would be many more trained analysts at commericial laboratories capable of asbestos quantification using PCM than there are electron microscopists at commercial labs providing analytical asbestos services. As for the cost of these analytical services, there are no doubt persons who can provide more precise information, but for illustrative purposes we have made some cost projections using the MSHA asbestos sampling data set as an example. In the asbestos PEL section of the ANPR, MSHA noted that recent field sampling data showed none of the samples collected exceeded OSHA's eight-hour time-weighted average of 0.15 fiber per cc when analyzed using the TEM method. Assuming that the personal asbestos fiber compliance air sampling results -- those that are posted on your web site -- is a basis for this statement, we would make some cost estimates of various strategies for analyzing asbestos by TEM and PCM. And I must say I did not understand all of the complexities in that data until the remark that was made previously by one of the MSHA staff that these numbers would even differ from what I would present. The example we present includes 12 samples in the data set from the one asbestos mine, but we understand -- and our example assumes -- that analysis by TEM ranges between $150 to $250 per sample, while analysis by PCM for asbestos will range from $12 to $15 per sample. Assuming these analytical costs are in the ballpark, if TEM were required for all asbestos samples, analysis of the 273 samples in our count in the MSHA database by TEM would have cost on the low end $40,950, and on the high end $68,250. Suppose MSHA were to use a strategy of PCM for screening samples and establish an action level of one half the OSHA PEL of 0.05 fibers per cc, and use TEM to confirm the identification of asbestos on samples exceeding the action level. If our understanding of the MSHA data is correct -- and again, I think it is quite correct -- 44 samples would have exceeded that action limit, and would have been subjected to TEM analysis. Using the current fiber definition for PCM counting, the cost of PCM analysis for all of the 273 samples and confirmatory TEM for the 44 samples would have ranged from $9,876 to $15,095. Going one step further, if the screening level was set at the OSHA PEL of 0.1 fiber per cc, 12 samples would have been subjected to TEM, and the cost range would have been $5,286 to $8,345. The end result of these scenarios using the MSHA database would have been that no overexposures to asbestos at the OSHA standard would have been detected in mines not engaged in asbestos mining, and miners would not be subjected to unacceptable risk. So if TEM had been used to analyze all of the samples, the cost of doing so would have been wasted. Using PCM as a screen reduced unnecessary cost with no negative impact on risk detection, PCM analysis could be made an even more reliable screening tool by adopting fiber counting criteria more specific to asbestos, resulting in further unnecessary cost containment. Be assured that in a for-profit business a greater than ten-fold cost difference of $5,286 on the low end of our example and $68,250 on the high end for any service -- whether it's analytical laboratory or other -- without receiving added value or benefit is not viewed as a sound business expense. Perhaps for any later rule to be proposed by MSHA you will have time to independently survey accredited asbestos laboratories to determine the capability of commericial laboratories for analytical services, and to provide cost projections that will be placed on the industry to comply with the various sampling schemes. This idea or concept of a phase contrast microscopy screening, especially if it's involves asbestos specific fiber counting criteria, is so important we do want to make a little more comment on that. And for that I would ask John Kelse to continue with the remarks on the subject. MR. KELSE: I thank you, Bob. I guess I'll continue by saying that we realize there is concern that asbestos fibers below the resolution limit of a light microscope are not counted under PCM; and, when present, constitute a false negative PCM finding. And there is understandable concern, then, that an undetected health risk exists. And this, in turn, might argue for TEM analysis for every sample -- financial impact aside. In addressing this concern, we found that MSHA's own 285 mine samples -- and again, it's I guess in the PDF file -- results provided, as Bob indicated, a valuable insight regarding the practicality of PCM screening from a risk perspective. We noted, for example, that the PCM total fiber counts significantly outnumbered the corresponding TEM counts for actual asbestos in the MSHA database. Comparison was available for 50 samples, I believe, for mines not engaged in the mining of asbestos. TEM asbestos counts turned out to be approximately 5 to 20 times lower than the PCM count. Even in the two asbestos mine samples analyzed by both PCM and TEM, the TEM asbestos fiber count was one-half that of the PCM count. We believe this difference demonstrates the significant role non-asbestos elongated particulate false positive PCM results, if you will, play in the mining environment because none of the non-asbestos mine TEM data shows an asbestos concentration in excess of the proposed PEL of 0.1 fibers per cc. Most were not even close. Concern that actual asbestos not observed by PCM may be at risk of significance isn't supported by the agency's own data. We think this, in turn, lends support for PCM as an adequately sensitive approach -- especially in the mining environment -- one that could be made even more useful, as Bob mentioned, with the adoption of more asbestos-specific fiber counting criteria. We believe in non-mining environments where processed asbestos-containing materials are more often encountered, asbestos fiber counts, as MSHA I believe has pointed out, have been shown to be much higher than PCM counts with the same exposure, or the same filter; the exact inverse of what you see in the MSHA mine data. In fact, in the mining environment, it might be argued that the greatest risk of PCM use is false positives. The counting of elongated particulate that is not asbestos. It would be interesting to know how much difference the mining PCM counts would have been from the TEM counts had more discriminating fiber counting criteria been applied in the PCM counts. If you still have those filters, in fact, I suspect MSHA could do that comparison. It would be our guess that the difference between the PCM count and the TEM count would have been much less. And if we're right, the need for TEM work would have been avoided altogether in this sampling effort. And the time and money involved could have been saved or directed to more important safety and health problems. We believe far more could be gained in the mining environment by a more effective PCM screening approach than it could from exclusive use of TEM, since it does not appear a reasonable PCM screening approach would jeopardize the health of miners. Given today's improved understanding of what asbestos is, we believe MSHA should be able to design a more discriminating, more asbestos-specific PCM fiber counting procedure for screening purposes with electron microscopy used to confirm that suspect PCM fibers are a regulated asbestos mineral. Asbestos fiber characteristics that can be observed under PCM will be discussed more fully in our written submission. Further, in regard to the proper asbestos identification, we feel very strongly that MSHA should use this rulemaking opportunity to provide specific guidance to the regulated community on the difference between asbestiform and non-asbestiform varieties of minerals. Doing this would reduce confusion and support an improved PCM screening approach. This clarity is particularly important in the mining environment because there is an even greater potential than in general industry to mistakenly include cleavage fragments in the counting of asbestos fibers, as I believe the PCM/TEM comparison I just discussed shows. The characteristics of what constitutes and distinguishes asbestiform and non-asbestiform minerals was the topic of an OSHA asbestos hearing in 1990 with a final rule promulgated in 1992. MSHA is encouraged to review the testimony and docket submissions to this rule, and provide guidance to the regulated community and analysts on the characteristics that distinguish asbestiform from non-asbestiform varieties of the serpentine and amphibole mineral groups. A consensus definition from the 1990 rulemaking supported by 16 mineral scientists, many of whom have published extensively in this area -- and put forward by the American Mining Congress, now the National Mining Association; and the National Stone Association, that's now the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association -- defined asbestos and ascribed characteristics of asbestos fibers. We feel that MSHA should adopt this consensus definition as a means further reducing ambiguity in this area. I should note that this consensus definition does not contradict the agency's current definition, but does build upon it. This additional clarity can only improve analytical specificity. A copy of this definition will be provided in our written submission. In regard to what is regulated as asbestos, we would like to simply say at this time that asbestos aside, any material -- chemical or mineral, fibers or non-fibers, acicular or elongated, asbestiform or non-asbestiform -- should be regulated only on the basis of demonstrated risk, and always, always called by its proper name. In the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, MSHA also asked if PEL compliance should be measured using TEM, and if disease end points in epidemiology studies of asbestos have been related to TEM measurements. We believe the simple answer to both questions is no. We're not aware of any reported TEM asbestos fiber concentrations that have been adequately correlated to disease end points of asbestos exposure or to risk. In contrast, PCM asbestos fiber counts have been related to asbestos-related disease, and do form the basis for exposure limit decisions. Moreover, we are not aware of any reliable correlation or correction factor that can be applied within TEM asbestos fiber counts to PCM fiber counts. TEM to PCM asbestos fiber counting correlation schemes have been proposed, but the uncertainties and limitations of these schemes are well recognized. Some of those will be discussed in the submissions that we'll make later. Variables such as the mode of fiber generation impacting size and number of fiber bundles, and asbestos mineral type -- some present in shorter, thicker fibers than others -- must be taken into consideration. In summary, TEM asbestos fiber counts should not be compared to PELs that were developed using PCM fiber counts, since they do not relate occupational exposures to disease outcomes. For the above reasons, it will still be necessary to conduct PCM analysis of all samples used for the determination of PEL compliance. Further, we are not aware of any adverse human exposure to any asbestos material in which the airborne exposure could not readily be observed by light microscopy. Switching gears in regard to questions MSHA has asked about take-home contamination, we simply have at this stage a simple comment that we believe that when asbestos take-home exposure exists in a mine from any source, MSHA should require appropriate control measures. The Industrial Mineral Association plans to comment further in this area after MSHA has more fully defined what controls are desirable, and how implementation in this area is envisioned. In regard to asbestos sampling, we believe the most used, established asbestos monitoring protocols -- such as NIOSH 7400 -- in terms of filter media, flow rates, and sampling strategies should not be changed. We believe MSHA's emphasis on full-shift personal sampling is appropriate for PEL comparison purposes, as well. IMA North America is obviously most concerned with consistency and proper asbestos identification. Changes in sampling variables such as collection flow rates are likely to further confound the usefulness of asbestos -- further confuse the usefulness of asbestos fiber counts. Comparison of asbestos fiber concentrations obtained in ways different than those used to establish the risk linked PEL reduces the reliability of the sample to predict risk. Obtaining higher fiber counts by adjusting collection and analytical practices is not very meaningful if you aren't able to make apples to apples comparison between exposure and the risk of disease. Certainly any change in asbestos monitoring or analysis that would improve risk recognition is desirable. Such changes, however, should be confirmed before they are implemented. IMA North America is not aware of any monitoring adjustments at this time that would improve upon the current asbestos monitoring system. To wrap up our testimony today, the Industrial Minerals Association believes significant asbestos exposure in U.S. mines, outside the mining and milling of asbestos, is very rare. MSHA's recent assessment of asbestos exposure in mines supports this. Further, despite ongoing controversy regarding risks associated with asbestos exposures and imprecision regarding the identification of asbestos, enough understanding does exist to properly identify and control hazardous exposure. However, to make the best use of this understanding, lessons of the past must not be overlooked. And theories and concepts no longer supported must be abandoned. Considering the error-ridden history of asbestos regulation in the United States as it relates to a host of non-asbestos minerals, it might be argued that the greatest risk to the mining community is when asbestos is improperly identified, and emotionalism is allowed to trump science and reason. The IMA North America looks forward to further participation in this rulemaking as MSHA further refines and clarifies its intentions. Thank you very much. If you have any questions, I'll see if I can dance around. DR. JONES: You had called for a clear definition of asbestiform minerals versus non-asbestiform. What -- MR. KELSE: A clear definition of asbestos, what asbestos is. In defining asbestos, you have to also define what the term asbestiform means, and describe it. It will appear in our submissions. DR. JONES: Okay. Thank you. MS. SMITH: Thank you very much. Do we have other individuals in the audience at this time who would like to speak who have not signed up, who have just recently come in? (Pause) Has everyone else who signed up spoken? MS. ELY: Thank you very much. It's a very good thing that you folks have elected to come to Charlottesville today. We appreciate that. My name is Rae Ely, R-A-E, E-L-Y. I'm an attorney from Louisa County. I have been monitoring the production, distribution and problems associated with the vermiculite industry in America for approximately 30 years now. And I may be one of the few people in the room here today who was involved in the Federal government's levels of concern and interest in the 1970s in what was going on in Libby, Montana. Was it Yogi Bear who said, "It's deja vu all over again?" That's how I feel today. The industry, as you know, took a very vigorous stand in the 1970s defending itself in the work that was being done in Libby, Montana. The people of Libby knew that they were being subjected to dangerous materials. And we -- as far away as Louisa County, Virginia -- knew about what was going on in Libby. But the agencies were so concerned about the pressure from the industries that very little was done. I was concerned by your opening statement here today where you indicated that MSHA, even though it had jurisdiction over Libby, learned about the extent of the problem in Libby from reading the Seattle newspapers. This is -- this is a real concern, I think, to people who are concerned about public health. The problems that we have in Louisa County are now being debated as to whether or not there is any health problem. This is the same debate that took place in Libby in the '70s. There are not the death totals that we have in Libby now in Louisa County because that mine is 25 years younger. But I would submit to you that just as the W.R. Grace problem in Libby was a case study in the '70s, where we now know what the bottom line turned out to be, so is the problem in Louisa County a case study that you have the opportunity of addressing today. If you look through your own files and records on the history of the inspections of this mine, you will see a great contradiction in the results that have been developed through the years. A number of reports from the inspections -- the MSHA inspections -- show no detection at all. And then when there was greater scrutiny following in the wake of Libby, there was extensive testing which found substantial samples of contamination; some of the contamination being as high as samples that showed 99 percent tremolite asbestos. Now, one of the things that's in my possession that's quite interesting, I have -- because of extensive litigation with the W.R. Grace company, I have thousands and thousands of documents from the W.R. Grace company files, which show as early as 1949 when the Grace company was doing the original drilling -- the test drilling in Louisa -- of almost every test drilling hole, probably 75 percent at least showed high levels of actinolite and tremolite asbestos being pulled out of the ground in these samples. And then, of course, Grace began to be very defensive as the problems in Libby developed. And Grace began to take the same position in regard to the vermiculite deposits in Louisa as it was in Libby, in every instance denying that there was a problem. Also, of course, at Libby they argued that the economics of controls were just so great for them that they could not afford to offer additional protection to the workers and the community. It's ironic, isn't it, that today -- 25 years later -- hundreds of people of the community and the workers are dead. And, of course, the company is bankrupt. Now, one of the questions that was asked here today was about the breakdown of the bundles of fibers during the processing. And I certainly am not an engineer. I'm not a chemist. But I do have a little bit of common sense. And as I say, I've watched this process for a long time. I will say that based on the information that I have available, there is a tremendous risk of the massive asbestos samples -- or the bundles of fibers -- being broken down fairly readily. This product is submitted to grinding and processing as it's being made ready for its downstream market. It is also subject to contact with heavy equipment in the workplace, large pieces of machinery running over this material. And one of the things that Mr. Stamberg did not mention to you is that when the asbestos veins are dug up, much of that is dumped into a pond on the property. And the water for the dust control at the plant is withdrawn from this asbestos-containing pond. And that water is sprayed over the roads and over the workers' area. Right now we are in the middle of a drought, and, of course, tremendous heat. And we've had a fair amount of wind. I would invite any one of you to drive past that plant today and see the clouds of dust -- not only visible on the mine site itself, but out on the road. I drive past it twice every day. I hold my breath, literally, as I drive past that mine site, getting behind trucks that are giving off clouds of dust. All of these minerals -- much of this is stored in an open location in the center of the Town of Louisa where it is being readied for shipment by rail. No protection whatsoever. I am wondering whether any of you who are here today were present at the senatorial hearing that was held by Senator Paddy Murray last fall? One person. I will recommend to you that you review the transcript -- or perhaps the videotape -- which is available that exists from that hearing, and include that information as part of your record today. In any event, we cannot afford to make anymore mistakes like this agency and EPA and other agencies made through the years with Libby. What more do we need than what we already have from the record that is available as far as this product in the United States? Let's err on the side of caution. The most stringent tests should be employed. The workers must be protected. HEPA filters do not control the workplace outdoors. They do not control the dust that is laced with this product that is being spread around this property and around the community. That is not sufficient. And we would request, on behalf of the community and the public at large, that this agency step up to the plate, assume the responsibility that it has, and exercise it to the best of its capability. Thank you very much. MS. SMITH: Thank you very much. If you do have information available to us that you could submit for the record, could you do that? MS. ELY: I'll be happy to supplement my remarks with documents. MS. SMITH: Thank you very much. Are there any other speakers in the audience who have not signed up, but would like to speak at this time? (Pause) We do have a request for speakers for 1:00 this afternoon. Since we have no other speakers at this time, we will go off the record. The panel will remain in this room until 11:00. If we do have other speakers come and request to speak, we will go back on the record to accept their remarks. If not, then we will come back on the record in this room at 1:00. We have, I believe, eight speakers this afternoon beginning at 1:00. Thank you very much. (Off the record, 10:40 a.m.) MS. SMITH: Ladies and gentlemen, it is 11:00. We had no further requests for speakers this morning. Therefore, we will adjourn until 1:00. We do have speakers scheduled for this afternoon beginning at 1:00. Thank you. (Recess, 11:00 a.m. to 1:07 p.m.) MS. SMITH: I've had a request to start. We're going to start with Mr. William Ford. MR. FORD: Thank you very much, distinguished members of the MSHA Asbestos Hearing Panel. My name is William Ford. I'm senior vice president of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association. I'm a registered professional engineer, and have been with the association for the past 12 years. I have more than 36 years experience in the field of environmental engineering, a significant portion of which has been as an environmental and public health regulation. The National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, NSSGA, is pleased to offer comments and evidence in response to a request for comments from the Mine Safety and Health Administration regarding asbestos. We appreciate that the agency has reached out to stakeholders in an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to obtain their views on this important matter. NSSGA has assembled speakers with expertise on the various facets of asbestos from geology, mineralogy, analytical chemistry, safety and health, and industrial hygiene to offer the best possible advice to the agency during its deliberation. NSSGA is the world's largest mining association in terms of annual production and locations represented with more than 900 member companies -- many of which are small businesses -- operating over 3,500 locations across America. Our membership represents about 90 percent of the crushed stone, 70 percent of the sand and gravel produced annually in the United States. During 2000, 2.78 billion metric tons of crushed stone, sand and gravel, valued at $14.5 billion, were produced and sold from the 10,000 locations nationwide -- more than double the tonnage of the next largest mining sector, which is sole. We represent operations in all 50 states. NSSGA is completely and unreservedly committed to assuring a mining workplace that is free of recognized safety and health risks. NSSGA's "Safety and Health Guiding Principles," a written statement of policy, advocates that NSSGA members advocate a strong and unwavering commitment to safety and health, and pledges the association's work toward the prevention of all occupational illnesses and injuries. Over the years, NSSGA has backed up this lofty rhetoric with programs designed to meet the objectives the organization espouses. For instance, in a landmark, award-winning seminar series, we have partnered with MSHA to bring real-life instruction on sampling for noise and respirable dust to aggregates industry safety and health professionals. Some 320 individuals have successfully completed this program, including eight who just completed the intensive three-day workshop this past week. We have produced videos on new miner training, haul truck safety, and basic safety and health principles. We have teamed with MSHA to produce PowerPoint presentations on high wall safety, and we're currently working with the agency on a high wall video safety series. And we have joined hands with the agency to dissect the job of haul truck operators as a first step in preparing an interactive CD-ROM, which we believe will lead to a sharp reduction in the number of accidents of powered haulage accidents. We have also collaborated with the agency, other industry stakeholders, and labor representatives to fashion a new safety training rule that meets the unique needs of safety aggregates miners. NSSGA co-founded, co-led and provided volunteer staff for the Coalition for Effective Miner Training, an industry/labor coalitions that MSHA used as the basis for its Part 46 training regulation. NSSGA's Board of Directors has approved development of an occupational health program for the aggregates industry. The OHP, as we call it, will set a benchmark for occupational health in the aggregates industry that should ensure an even healthier aggregates mining population than now exists, and may serve as a beacon for other industry segments to follow. The Association is a co-founder and active participant of the Silica Coalition. The aim of this organization is to bring sound science to regulatory deliberations on crystalline silica. NSSGA is also funding an epidemiological study of crushed stone workers to determine what, if any, adverse health effects they may have experienced due to potential exposure to crystalline silica. The six commericial varieties of asbestos are widely known to present a serious health risk under specific circumstances of exposure. These substances are among the most highly regulated of any in the country today. We appreciate that the agency is taking steps to tighten its asbestos regulations in the wake of the tragedy in Libby, Montana. We offer our heartfelt condolences to those who have suffered there, and to those who continue to suffer. It's crucial to identify the hazard, and then to develop thoughtful regulations that will minimize or eliminate that hazard. We see a risk that MSHA might encompass, by regulation, non-asbestiform materials for which no health effects have been observed. As the panel knows, an attempt to regulate non-asbestiform minerals occurred in 1986 when the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced a final rule aimed at regulating the non-asbestiform mineral habit of actinolite, tremolite, and anthophyllite. Fortunately, this so-called ATA regulation was subsequently withdrawn in 1992 after NSSGA -- operating then as two separate entities, the National Stone Association and the National Aggregates Association -- along with others, persuaded an attentive agency that it was off course; and that there was, in fact, no health justification for the regulation. The exhausting effort stretched out over six long years, and consumed countless hours of personnel time, and involved an expenditure to the industry alone of over $5 million in direct costs. A decade has since past, and there still is no evidence to support a regulation of non-asbestiform minerals. Why did we put so much effort into turning back a regulation issued by an agency that didn't even have jurisdiction over our mining operations? We viewed it as critical to the very survival of our industry because, while OSHA does not regulate aggregates mines, it does regulate our customers. This issue is even more critical today because it is under consideration by an agency, MSHA, that does regulate our industry. NSSGA viewed the 1992 decision as a victory for sound science, reason, and just plain common sense. In considering changes to its own asbestos standard, MSHA has a more challenging mission than OSHA had 15 years ago. Because OSHA is primarily concerned with the handling of commercial asbestos in abatement projects, where the presence of asbestos is known, the need for more specific mineralogical descriptions of asbestos and more specific methods of analyzing asbestos are not necessary. But the environment MSHA looks after is much more difficult and complex when sampling and analyzing for asbestos, because in this setting the agency deals primarily with non-commericial, naturally-occurring asbestos, or no asbestos at all. Where the federal fiber definition of a particle that is five microns and longer with an aspect ratio of at least 3:1 is not too troublesome in OSHA's regulatory environment, it is very troublesome and inappropriate in MSHA's regulatory environment. The only reason it hasn't been a problem in the past is that the current exposure limit of 2 fibers per cubic centimeter is high. Not many samples reach this concentration, and need mineralogical determination. In the quarry environment there are many types of harmless rock fragments that fit the federal fiber definition. In fact, the non-asbestiform habits of the six commercial varieties of asbestos fall under this category. As MSHA considers reducing its PEL from two fibers per cubic centimeter to a tenth of a fiber per cubic centimeter, the number of samples requiring additional electron microscopic analysis for mineralogical characterization will increase dramatically unless the discriminate counting procedure used by MSHA is more inclusive of asbestos and exclusive of non-asbestos. We fully recognize the need for many MSHA to respond to the recommendations contained in the Department of Labor Inspector General's 2001 report. We have prepared testimony to assist the agency in responding responsibly to those recommendations. As noted, we have assembled a panel of experts from across North America to offer their expertise in this matter in their professional field. Resum‚s of this group will be submitted with their formal testimony, so I'll dispense with reciting the extensive array of skills, experience and training that they bring to their work. Nonetheless, I will provide a short introductory remark on each of them now. Our first speaker will be Dr. Malcolm Ross, a retired geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, who now is in private practice in mineral consulting. Dr. Ross will stress the importance for MSHA to properly define, sample and analyze asbestos in the mining industry to avoid significant adverse economic impacts. Dr. Ross's entire career has been devoted to geology and mineralogy. The next three speakers following Dr. Ross will describe the specific impact improper asbestos definitions and analytical methods have had on their operations. Speaking from personal, firsthand experience will be Doug Palmore from Luck Stone Corporation here in Virginia, Rick Cole from the Lafarge Corporation in Maryland, and Alan Bowen of Southdown in New Jersey. Southdown is a division of the Cemex Corporation. Our fifth speaker, Dr. Ann Wylie from the University of Maryland, will review the scientific literature that addresses how asbestiform fibers and non-asbestiform particles differ in the real world. Dr. Wylie will explain how asbestos is defined neurologically, and how the federal fiber definition fails to differentiate between asbestiform and non-asbestiform minerals. She will stress the need to incorporate these real world differences in a proper set of counting criteria that can be used in air and bulk analyses. Dr. Wylie has more than 35 years of experience in the field. Dr. Richard Lee of the R.J. Lee Group in Monroeville, Pennsylvania will talk about the -- who has been active in the area of asbestos analytical research since the 1970s -- will demonstrate that many samples collected in quarries will exceed .1 fibers per cubic centimeter under microscopic analysis by phase contrast microscopy. This will lead to a discussion about the need to change the simplistic federal fiber counting criteria, since failing to do so could lead to excessive electron microscopy analysis. He will discuss the technical difficulties of characterizing samples using electron microscopy with a lack of qualified laboratories. He will address the impracticality of using OSHA's current fiber definition in an unknown mineral environment. His talk will conclude with a description of an analytical approach to air samples that contain federal fiber count for historical purposes, but incorporates the discriminate counting process that isolates only fibers of health concern; that is, long, thin fibers. Dr. Eric Chatfield of Toronto-based Chatfield Technical Consulting, who will precede Dr. Lee, will describe how EPA is using the discriminate counting process to focus on asbestiform particles that are less lest than .5 microns in width, and 10 microns and longer. He will emphasize the inappropriateness of the PCM federal fiber method for the ambient environment typical of quarries. And he will identify other entities that have departed from the federal fiber PCM counting method. Kelly Bailey will conclude our presentation. Kelly is a certified industrial hygienist with Vulcan Materials Company, the nation's largest producer of aggregate products. He will describe how inappropriate fiber definitions have warped the dose/response curves for asbestos miners, and how continued use of the federal fiber analytical approach will prolong poor science. Kelly will also summarize the main points made by each of the panelists. And he will outline a proposed standard regarding fiber definitions and analytical processes. In the interest of time and efficiency, we suggest that members of the panel hold any questions or comments until all of the speakers have concluded their presentations. It's possible that the questions that you may have for one speaker will be answered by a subsequent speaker. Thank you again for offering stakeholders such as NSSGA the opportunity to offer expert witnesses on this vital issue. Copies of the testimony of each of our speakers, plus an extensive array of supporting documents, will be submitted to the docket before the close of the comment period. This concludes my presentation, and Dr. Ross will be our first speaker. DR. ROSS: Thank you for allowing me to address the panel, the MSHA panel. The crushing of any rock produces some mineral particles that may be within the size range of specified federal regulations. If correct definitions of the truly hazardous material; that is, asbestos, are not made, it presents a formidable problem to those analyzing for the asbestos minerals in the multitude of different mineral particles that may be found in rock dusts, for not only must the size and shape of the mineral particles be determined, but also an exact mineral identification must be made. Many different types of non-fibrous amphiboles are found in many types of common rocks. And many of these amphiboles might be considered asbestos, depending on the professional training of the analyst, on the equipment used for analysis. Drs. Wylie, Lee and Chatfield, in the testimony to be given later, ably discuss the methods to distinguish asbestos particles to non-asbestos particles, as I have nothing further to contribute to this subject other than to support their conclusions. If the suspect fibers include non-fibrous, amphibole minerals, then we must recognize asbestos presents -- is present in significant amounts in many types of rocks covering perhaps 30 percent of the United States. This is a slide that was produced by the Environmental Protection Agency some years ago. And on the right you see the cross-hatch region. That's essentially the Appalachian Mountains where you have many types of rocks that can contain asbestos, as well as in the West Coast in the Sierras and Rocky Mountains and so forth. Rocks within the serpentenite belts, greenschist rocks, amphibolites, gneissic rocks, diabases, basalts, trap rocks and granites would be considered asbestos bearing. Asbestos regulations would thus pertain to many of our country's mining operations and quarrying operations for concrete aggregate, dimension stone, road material, railroad ballast, and riprap. Also affected would be the construction industry -- road and housing construction, for example. I now want to mention the Libby asbestos problem. The Libby vermiculite deposit located near the town of Libby, Montana is owned by the W.R. Grace Company, and was operated by that company from 1963 until it closed in 1990. The vermiculite found in a geologically complex magnesium iron-rich rock composed of alkaline rocks, syenites, trachytes, phonolites and granites. Anything amphibole-bearing, asbestos-bearing veins are disseminated throughout the vermiculite body. The asbestos has been identified as amphibole winchite. Colloquially, you can refer to this as a sodic tremolite. Apparently, the newly-proposed MSHA regulations were promulgated because of the concern over the asbestos dust and resulting health effects from the Libby mine. The problem at Libby, as I see it, is not because there was a lack of a .1 fiber standard, because neither the mine operator nor the state or federal authorities recognized that asbestos was pervasively disseminated through the ore body, and that airborne dust levels were far higher than existing regulations permitted, even after wet processing began in 1974. It was well known asbestos was present in the ore body long before the mine was taken over by Grace Chemical Company. If a mineralogist/petrologist had been engaged to inspect this mine for asbestos, warnings could be given, and mining procedures altered, if possible, to keep the dust levels low. I believe it is imperative that mines of any type be inspected by qualified mineralogists and petrologists in order to protect the potential dust risks, an activity that I and my colleagues have been engaged in for several years. Next, the crystal growth of asbestos fibers. All asbestos occurrences that I have seen, and are noted in the scientific literature, show that asbestos crystallizes under very special conditions -- conditions that occur within rock formations that are undergoing intense deformation. Rock deformations are often accompanied by the intrusion of magnetic fluids forming dikes and sills. Fibers crystallize in high strain environments such as within folds, shear planes, faults, dilation cavities, and at intrusion boundaries. For example, we observed fiber formation in a shear zone within a metamorphosed iron formation. Here non-fibrous ferroactinolite amphibole came into contact with low temperature acidic solutions which were moving through an active shear zone, causing the amphibole to re-crystallize in a fibrous form. In another mine, I studied felsic dikes had intruded the host rock; the dikes composing perhaps 2 or 3 percent of the total rock volume. Asbestos was not found within the ore-bearing portion of the ore body, but rather as thin coatings of asbestos on the contact surfaces between the felsic dikes and the host rock. I estimate that the fibrous mineral associated with the felsic dikes composed much less than .01 percent of the total volume of the rock. In another mine, I noted thin coatings of asbestos on the shear surfaces of large blocks of marble, this shearing probably occurring over tens of millions of years. Rock deformations are common and found in many different geologic localities, hosting a variety of mineral deposits. But even though a deposit may be exploited for something other than asbestos, asbestos may form in extremely small quantities within the deformed rock. Even though asbestos was present in the examples I presented, it was little or none that would be expected to show up in air sampling, particularly when the asbestos-bearing rock is not crushed and processed, but rather discarded with other overburden. I bring this point out, for even though the fiber may not be detected in air samples, organizations or individuals who, for one reason or another are against mining, might collect samples of sheared rock and show that asbestos is indeed present in the ore, and thus there is a potential health danger to the miners and those living nearby. The mere fact that asbestos exists in a mine is often enough to stop production -- the one-fiber-can-cause-cancer scenario. I present some case histories of where I think there has been a misdirected effort at the regulation. A large number of actions over the last 30 years, perpetuated in a misguided effort to protect human health, have greatly affected the vitality of U.S. Mining and metals industries and the U.S. economy. A few examples are given here. A flood barrier surrounding part of the City of San Jose, California is composed of serpentinite rock containing small amounts of chrysotile asbestos. The EPA considers that rock toxic, and placed a barrier on the Superfund list for remedial action. In this same city, the extension of a mass transit rail line was held up indefinitely because the right-of-way required a cut through a hill composed of serpentinite rock. Serpentinite is a very common type of rock exposed in many areas in the United States, and is commonly used in construction zones and aggregates. Indeed, if serpentinite rock is considered dangerous, thousands of square miles of land might be placed off limits for any kind of development. In one area of California, the New Idria Mountains, 50 square miles of soft rock is naturally exposed at the surface containing 15 to 60 percent chrysotile asbestos. Large amounts of asbestos from this area have entered the environment, both air and water and stream, for millions of years with no discernible health effects to the residents in those areas. The U.S. District Court in Minnesota in 1975 declared the taconite mined by Reserve Mining Company contained amosite asbestos. The company was ordered to build a special landfill costing $300 million to dispose of the waste rock. Soon after spending this money for site preparation, the company declared bankruptcy. The taconite mined by Reserve contains magnetite, carbonates, quartz, and various other silicates; including non-asbestiform cummingtonite and actinolite amphibole. After carefully sampling 11-miles just recently, I found only one small area, a shear zone, that contained asbestos. In 1987, actinolite asbestos was discovered at a construction site in Fairfax County, Virginia, causing concern over possible health risks to workers, as well as county residents. The asbestos was confined to the shear zone and anticlinal folds within the actinolite schist, a prominent rock type within the Piney Branch formation, which outcrops over three and-a-half square mile area of Fairfax County. As a result of this discovery, the Fairfax County Health Department initiated dust control procedures. The advisory requires contractors to use proper dust control practices, air monitoring, safe waste rock disposal, and existing asbestos standards. It further states in the county advisory that construction not be banned. As a result of this well-reasoned regulatory initiative, the county continued to build housing and commericial buildings on some of the most valuable land in the United States, while at the same time protecting the workers and the public from an avoidable risk of asbestos-related disease. Lastly, during the 1990s, many new housing projects were started in the fast-developing foothills area of El Dorado County, California, a county located in the Great Valley serpentenite belt. During excavation for housing sites within the serpentenite rock, fragments of tremolite were found, thus alarming the homeowners. The local newspapers published a series of articles that suggested that the county residents' exposure to tremolite asbestos was endangering their health. A large number of air samples were collected in numerous sites all over the county by the California Air Resources Board. The fiber concentrations, non-tremolite, averaged less than .001 fibers per cubic centimeter. El Dorado County still appears to remain in turmoil over the asbestos. In contrast, Fairfax County, in which the asbestos controversy -- if indeed there was one -- died out 10 years ago. Cleavage fragments described as amphibole, as well as fragments from many other natural occurring minerals, are abundant in our environment. Anywhere that mines or quarries are operated, where building road and tunnel construction occurs, in many agricultural regions, and where mineral or rock aggregate is processed or utilized, mineral fragments will usually be encountered both in air and water. It is now common for people living near mines and quarries to believe that any amount of asbestos, or minerals said to be asbestos-like present unacceptable health risks. Others at this meeting will tell their problems facing quarry operations. Many prescribe to the theory that there is no known exposure threshold for the induction of cancer. It's stated repeatedly in the press and in many health reviews that, because no one knows the minimum amount of a carcinogen required to initiate the growth of a tumor, it must be assumed that any amount of a carcinogen is unsafe. Such statements lead the public to believe that just one fiber of asbestos can cause cancer, and has led many communities to ban the mining and quarrying of rock. Hopefully, the state and federal regulatory agencies will help to counter such perceptions with promulgation of guidelines giving the true risks to the miners, as well as those living in the vicinity of the mine or quarry, of the various exposure scenarios. With regard to the proposed MSHA standard of .1 asbestos fibers per cc, I believe most stone quarries could operate at this standard rock, provided only true asbestos is counted. However, if amphibole cleavage fragments are counted, many quarries could not meet the standard. Thank you. MR. PALMORE: Good afternoon. My name is Doug Palmore. I am the Environment, Health and Safety Manager for Luck Stone Corporation. Luck Stone is a family-owned and operated aggregate company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia with 800 associates and 19 operations in Virginia and North Carolina. In addition to my role at Luck Stone, I'm also speaking today on behalf of the Virginia Aggregates Association, and in support of the testimony prepared by the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association. The groups I am representing today support MSHA in its efforts to protect miners from hazards associated with asbestos. Today I'm going to deliver a factual account about the economic impact caused by the misidentification of asbestos in crushed stone at one of our quarry operations. This misidentification was due to improper analytical methodology, and an improper fiber definition which apparently led to cleavage fragments being mistaken for asbestos. A little over two years ago, our materials testing lab received a call from the Virginia Department of Transportation and Materials Division notifying us that they were investigating the possibility of asbestiform minerals in materials from our Rockville, Virginia -- not Rockville Maryland -- crushed stone plant. This notification was very informal, and VDOT representative implied this was no big deal, they were not concerned, and they were simply addressing a citizen's complaint. A week earlier, VDOT had received a letter from a concerned citizen notifying the Department that he had collected a sample from an unpaved road in front of his home. He had read an article about naturally occurring asbestos, and thought his respiratory ailments and those of his family may be due to asbestos in the dust from the unpaved road. He apparently had been working for some time to get the road paved with no success. The results of his sampling showed 2.8 percent chrysotile asbestos as identified by EPA Method 600/R-93/116 using TEM. Armed with this data, he sent a letter to his local health department and copied the VDOT Secretary of Transportation, the State Attorney General, the Director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and the director of EPA Region III, to name a few. It was not long before VDOT's position was very formal, very serious, and directed squarely at Luck Stone. Even though stone had been placed on that road from several different quarries over the years, our Rockville plant had current orders to supply the VDOT maintenance shed that served the road in question. Within a couple of days of the initial notification, we received a call from the VDOT district administrator notifying us that VDOT was discontinuing the use of our stone in one of their residencies until the asbestos issue was resolved. And they requested access to our Rockville plant for testing. We immediately collected a random sample of base material from Rockville, and shipped it overnight to R.J. Lee Group in Monroeville, Pennsylvania for asbestos analysis. We had not conducted any asbestos sampling previously because the geology at Rockville does not lend itself to the formation of asbestiform mineralogy. Within 24 hours, we received the results from R.J. Lee confirming what we thought: There was no asbestos in our Rockville material. We communicated that information to VDOT, but they would not lift the ban on our material until they received the results of sampling that they had done at our plant and on the road in question. During this process, we were very concerned that VDOT may be using labs that were accustomed to analyzing building materials, and may not have experiencing analyzing natural occurring minerals for asbestos. Our fears were realized when one of VDOT's initial samples from the roadway showed a trace of chrysotile asbestos. Concurrently with the sampling activity, and despite Luke Stone's data showing the Rockville material to be asbestos free, VDOT began circulating an e-mail banning Rockville's products from the entire Fredericksburg district and Richmond district. VDOT began to shut down our customers -- asphalt and concrete producers -- working on state jobs. Contract truckers were bringing the VDOT e-mail to other Luck Stone sites, and asking if this ban applied to all of Luck Stone, or just material coming from our Rockville plant. The volatility of this situation expanded very quickly because of the general public's concern that asbestos equals cancer. Fortunately for us and for VDOT, VDOT did not used the word "asbestos" in their e-mails, only the word "contaminated" to describe our product. A group from Luck Stone requested and received an emergency meeting with VDOT's Assistant Commissioner for Environment, Transportation, and Regulatory Affairs to express our concern over VDOT's response to this situation, and to request that the ban be lifted from our Rockville plant. We received an assurance that he would do everything he could to expedite VDOT's response, but he was not prepared to lift the ban until he had conferred with VDOT's project team. Two days later, we finally convinced VDOT to participate in a conference call with the labs they were using and the R.J. Lee Group. The conference call occurred eight days after we were initially notified of the problem, and three days after the ban on our material began to circulate. The outcome of that conference call was to split a series of samples between VDOT's lab and R.J. Lee. Only after VDOT received the results of the split sampling showing no asbestos present did they finally lift the ban on our product. VDOT impacted Rockville plant sales for seven days as a result of the misidentification of asbestos from an unpaved road. The direct cost to Luck Stone in the form of lost sales and analytical fees numbered in the thousands of dollars, but pales in comparison to the cost of the man-hours we spent responding to this unfortunate situation. In addition to the cost to Luck Stone, VDOT had a team of four to five people working on this project, along with representatives from the Virginia Health Department. Between VDOT and Luck Stone, we collected well over 60 samples from our plant, VDOT's stockpiles, and the unpaved roadways -- all at a significant cost to the taxpayer. All because a lab with an excellent reputation for analyzing asbestos in building materials did not distinguish between a rock fragment and an asbestos fiber. Beyond the measurable financial loss, the what-ifs associated with this story are even more daunting. If the press had picked up on the word "asbestos" associated with our Rockville plant, it is difficult to predict the amount of damage that would have occurred to Luck Stone's reputation and viability in the Richmond, Virginia market. The cost to our industry and to MSHA resulting from a regulation that allows the misidentification of asbestos in naturally occurring minerals would be catastrophic. I'm not a chemist or a geologist, so I will not begin to speak to the technical details of what analytical methods are appropriate, or what the fiber definition should be. We have assembled an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience on the proper identification of asbestos in this room today, and they will provide the scientific justification for our position. My concern is that we properly identify and regulate true asbestos for the health of our miners, for the well-being of the public, and for the good of our industry. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. I would like to introduce Rick Cole of Lafarge North America, who will be our next speaker. MS. SMITH: Thank you. MR. COLE: Good afternoon. My name is Rick Cole. I'm the manager of Environmental Control in Lafarge North America, Eastern U.S. Region. I would like to thank the MSHA Office of Standards, Regulations and Variances for the opportunity to comment on measuring and controlling asbestos exposure. We have had a problem with the definition of asbestos as a 3:1 aspect ratio, and equal or greater to five microns in length for phase contrast microscopy, analysis which would then require transmission electron microscopy. This definition would include cleavage fragments which would not be true asbestos, but would require us to proceed with TEM, which takes more time, and is more expensive. You are also investigating reducing the PEL from two fibers per cc to .1 fiber per cc. This will cause the industry to test many more samples by TEM, which would be a waste of time and money since 3:1 greater than five microns would not necessarily be asbestos. Please don't make the same mistake that OSHA made during the hearings on asbestos back in the early '90s. To illustrate our concerns, I would like to relate two episodes which our company encountered in 1986 due to the June 1986 OSHA proposal. We feel that both of these situations could reoccur with the current 3:1 aspect ratio greater than five microns in length definition if the agency fails to include an adequate definition of asbestos, and an adequate analytical procedure. The first episode I'd like to relate is the New England play sand issue. It engulfed our company around 1986. And it began with a publication in the "New England Journal of Medicine" on October 2nd, 1986. The article resulted in a panic situation in which we removed all our product from retailer shelves. This issue surfaced in the states of Massachusetts and New York, and was due to the lack of an adequate definition of the material allegedly found in play sand. Numerous laboratories and renowned specialists were called upon to analyze these materials which were found to contain non-asbestiform tremolite rather than tremolite asbestos. Since they met the 3:1 aspect ratio, and were greater than five microns, they were initially reported as asbestos. Our firm was required to engage lawyers, as well as specialists, to monitor the issue -- all at great expense. We believe all this was caused by an inadequate definition of asbestos. The second issue is Prince Georges County, Maryland, basically as a local jurisdiction's attempt to regulate asbestos. Literally, it dealt with a law that would have required an aggregate firm to certify that its material did not contain asbestos in an amount greater than .01 percent by volume. The local law defined asbestos as actinolite, amosite, anthophyllite, chrysotile, crocidolite and tremolite -- the six. Several Maryland quarrying operations filed a complaint asking for declaratory and injunctive relief against Prince Georges County. The Prince Georges County Executive formed a task group to study the issue and report back on the feasibility of the law. The task group met 12 times over a 14-month period to no avail. There was a labor viewpoint and an industry viewpoint. The task group had reached a stalemate, and it wasn't going anyplace. One interesting activity undertaken by the task group was to submit a questionnaire to 20 different laboratories soliciting their ability to analyze aggregates in a manner to certify compliance with the law. 13 firms responded. None of them would certify that a quarry could be warranted asbestos-free from a sampling program, due to the heterogeneous nature of a stone deposit. It was also obvious that large errors were associated with the measurements; and the smaller the concentration, the greater the error. It was agreed that the resolution of this situation would be in the Circuit Court of Prince Georges County. Three years of debate, discussion and court hearings ensued between the introduction of the initial county bill and the final court action which declared the law invalid. Legal fees alone were more than $75,000. In June 1992, OSHA resolved the actinolite, tremolite, anthophyllite issue -- after years of debate -- by finally admitting there were two forms of these minerals. In that admittance, I guess, they failed to address the 3:1 aspect ratio for particles greater than five microns. I believe that these issues demonstrate that OSHA and MSHA do not operate in a vacuum, and local jurisdictions and municipalities look to these agencies for guidance in formulating safety and health programs. The asbestos issues in 1986 and subsequent laws subjected my firm to an enormous amounts of unnecessary effort to convince our customers, employees, and even ourselves that our quarry products did not contain carcinogenic asbestos. We were required to become knowledgeable in explaining the difference between true asbestos and cleavage fragments, as well as non-asbestiform AT&A. Both of these extremely volatile situations could have been avoided if the agencies had properly defined asbestos. I implore you to include in your new proposal a proper mineralogical definition of asbestos, and an adequate analytical procedure capable of distinguishing more realistically between cleavage fragments and asbestos. To do less would lead to continued confusion. Again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak. And the next speaker will be Mr. Alan Bowen, Director of Operations of the Mineral Division of Cemex. MS. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Cole. MR. BOWEN: Thank you. I also appreciate the opportunity to participate in this presentation as a member company of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association. For the record, my name is Alan Bowen. I serve as Director of Operations for the Minerals Group of Cemex, Incorporated. We operate five plants in the Northeastern United States that are involved in a mining environment. All of these plants are subject to regulation and inspection by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. It is important that I echo the sentiment expressed here today that preserving the safety of the personnel we employ is paramount to our success as a company. In fact, the four main responsibilities I give all of our operations to meet are to ensure the safety of the workforce, maintain environmental compliance of the facilities, adhere to the quality standards we have set for our products, and, of course, obtain the financial goals we have established. I see these four legs as equally important to our success. We are pleased to be able to work with outside organizations as resources to help us improve in any of these four areas. For that reason, we support MSHA's effort to establish new standards as regards the exposure of any of our people to real asbestos. However, our recent experience at our Sparta, New Jersey facility prompts me to present these remarks as to how important proper asbestos definition and analytical methods are to determining whether or not our employees are exposed to real asbestos hazards. The mineral deposit available to us in Sparta, New Jersey is a mixture of a granite overburden and a limestone ore body. The limestone is classified as part of the Franklin limestone deposit. It has the characteristic of a high purity calcium carbonate limestone, but has been blessed with a variety of other mineral inclusions during its millions of years of formation. These mineral inclusions actually detract from the purity of the limestone, but part of almost all naturally formed deposits. These inclusions compose such a small percentage of the total ore deposit that they do not interfere with the normal operations of the quarry, and do not have a measurable effect on the end product quality. Consequently, these included minerals are generally processed as part of the limestone ore body. This has been the case in this quarry since it was opened by Thomas Edison in the early 1900s. One of the known mineral inclusions is the non-asbestiform habit of tremolite. This mineral composes less than 1 percent of the ore body. It is important to understand that there is both an asbestos and a non-asbestos form of this same mineral. The potential harmful effects of the non-asbestos variety of this mineral has been studied many times. And the conclusion is that the non-asbestos variety does not pose a health threat. The almost hundred years of operation of the Sparta plant support this conclusion, as we have no history of plant personnel ever experiencing health problems of the type associated with known asbestos diseases. In fact, we have several third generation workers of the same family working in our Sparta quarry. They would not be there if they had had health problems in the previous generations of their families. So why was our quarry the subject of such a public outcry a year ago, with claims of posing a health threat to our community? Why were we forced to spend millions of dollars -- and I mean literally millions of dollars -- to defend ourselves when we posed no health threat to our employees, let alone our community? Why are we still spending six figure amounts to continue to prove we are not posing a health threat to anyone? It was really the result of improper interpretation of what constitutes asbestos or asbestos form minerals and improper analytical testing methods. Our tale of woe started as many urban sprawl stories do, with the development of very exclusive homes being built and purchased near our quarry site. Then when our neighbors occupied these homes, they were made to discover they had just bought their dream home next to a quarry that had been in operation almost a hundred years. This led to the typical complaints about blasting, noise, and dust generation. Even though we were not in violation of codes or regulations, as good corporate citizens we attempted to address those complaints with modifications to our operations. We changed our blasting patterns. We installed noise suppression de