School Asbestos Expert Works on Sideline for Contractors

The top safety officer for the Los Angeles schools, who monitors the removal of asbestos from schools by private contractors, has served at the same time as a paid consultant to some of those contractors.

During the last two years, at least five contractors have hired a consulting firm operated by Jack C. Waldron, chief of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s employee safety section, according to public documents and interviews with the contractors. The five contractors have been paid about $1.4 million to remove asbestos from scores of district schools.

The consulting firm, Associated Safety Consultants, also made free and unauthorized use of a school district laboratory to perform asbestos tests for paying clients.

Waldron’s partner in the consulting business is Dan Flaherty, a former safety section official. In interviews with The Times, the safety section’s three asbestos inspectors acknowledged that they have done work on the side for Associated Safety Consultants.

Two inspectors said that, despite misgivings but at Waldron’s request, they used the district lab to analyze asbestos samples for private clients. One said he did the private testing in the safety section’s lab for about a year until Associated got its own microscope last year.

Interview Requests Declined Associated, which uses the same address and telephone number as Waldron’s home in La Canada, does most of its asbestos consulting work for other school districts, hospitals and businesses.

Waldron and Flaherty declined requests for interviews. In a brief telephone conversation, Waldron said that district officials recently investigated his consulting work and “found no evidence of wrongdoing.”

David W. Koch, deputy business manager for the district, said district officials took a “personnel action against certain individuals” after the inquiry, which was prompted by an anonymous letter. He would not describe the action or name the individuals.

Nor would Koch say if Waldron has been told to stop doing outside work for asbestos contractors. “I’m advised that responding to something like that would be part of the confidential personnel action,” he said.

Efforts to remove cancer-causing asbestos from Los Angeles schools got under way about four years ago. A federally mandated survey in 1983 discovered damaged asbestos materials in nearly 600 of the Los Angeles district’s 748 schools and other buildings. Asbestos can become airborne when worn or broken, and the district has spent more than $4.7 million inspecting its buildings and paying maintenance workers and private contractors to remove and repair damaged asbestos in hundreds of areas.

As safety section chief, Waldron has no role in awarding asbestos contracts. That is done by the district’s facilities services branch after competitive bidding. But the section advises the facilities services branch if safety lapses by contractors are serious enough to drop them from the list of eligible bidders.

Critical Work The degree of care taken in removing asbestos is critical. Sloppy work can scatter asbestos fibers from insulation in an attic or boiler room to a wider area of a building. For this reason, the district requires contractors to isolate work areas with plastic sheeting, to wet asbestos to keep fibers from becoming airborne and to clean up thoroughly once work is done.

Safety section inspectors say they have been tough on all the asbestos contractors, and inspection reports show that all the contractors have been written up for at least minor violations of the safety rules.

Officials of the five companies that hired Waldron’s firm said the school district’s standards are tougher than most and that they never received special treatment.

Several other asbestos contractors who work for the district said they were never solicited by Associated nor did they hire the firm.

But a contractor that the district is trying to drop from the approved bidders list because of alleged safety lapses has suggested its problems are due in part to a failure to hire Waldron’s firm.

The Board of Education is scheduled today to consider whether to declare the contractor, P.W. Stephens Contractors Inc., a “non-responsible” bidder because of allegedly unsafe work at several schools, mostly in 1983. That could mean a two-year ban on asbestos work by Stephens at district schools.

The firm has been accused of failing to isolate work areas properly, of allowing asbestos debris to be tracked outside the work area and of allowing the asbestos level on one job to reach 2.8 fibers per cubic centimeter of air--more than five times the district standard allowable fo1914725993 As part of its defense, the firm has submitted a sworn statement by Ed Kennedy, a former senior carpenter with the school district who coordinated asbestos work in dozens of East Los Angeles schools. Kennedy, who briefly worked for Stephens after leaving the district, said that all contractors made mistakes but that Stephens did a better job than the two other firms he worked with most often while with the schools.

Dominating Firm One firm he mentioned was Latch-On Insulation Inc. of Anaheim, which has had about 150 contracts with the district--more than any other firm. It also is one of the five firms that used Associated Safety Consultants. The others are Long and Co. of Van Nuys; Omega Construction and Engineering Inc. of Phoenix, Ariz.; William Lovett Filter Co. Inc. of Los Angeles, and Baker Consultants Inc. of City of Commerce.

An examination by The Times of asbestos contracts showed that the five firms received about 300 of 525 contracts awarded by the district as of last fall. The five firms got nearly $1.4 million of the $2.4 million paid by the school district to about a dozen contractors.

The companies hired Associated to test air samples for asbestos, to fit their workers with respirators and to give workers asbestos safety training. Omega said it paid Associated about $4,500 for various services; the other contractors declined to give detailed accounts of how much they paid.

In an April, 1983, memo to facilities branch officials, Waldron praised Latch-On as one of only two contractors that “have shown consistently acceptable work within Cal/OSHA, EPA and District Guidelines.”

On May 11, however, barely two weeks later, one of his inspectors noted numerous deficiencies in Latch-On’s work at the Breed Street Elementary School, where the firm was stripping asbestos from a book storage room.

The inspection report noted that the Latch-On crew failed to keep asbestos wet while cutting and removing it. Instead of stripping and bagging the asbestos a little at a time, which is the proper method, the crew allowed the material to pile up on the floor.

On June 3, 1983, Latch-On was flagged for more safety violations at Bushnell Way Elemenmtary School while removing asbestos from piping in the restrooms, a boiler room and storage areas. This time the inspector saw “debris on RR (restroom) floor, walls, ledges, piping, in trash cans,” as well as evidence that the crew had “swept debris with a broom”--a prohibited practice because of the potential for scattering asbestos fibers.

The next month, while Latch-On was removing asbestos from restrooms at 66th Street School, an air sample showed an asbestos level of 6.4 fibers per cubic centimeter of air--more than twice the level cited for Stephens. “Extremely High Exceeds Permissible Limit,” the inspector wrote.

The inspection report noted that the crew had not completely isolated the work area and used a hard spray of water to wet the asbestos, causing “excess fiber release upon impact of water.’654966784 Latch-On was not dropped from the approved bidders list. Inspection reports suggest that the company’s performance improved later in 1983 and 1984, although occasional violations were still noted.

On Wednesday, June 1--just before the Bushnell Way job--Waldron held a training session for Latch-On employees, according to information Latch-On provided to Cal/OSHA to show its workers had been trained. Later that month, Waldron also analyzed air samples for Latch-On at another school district, Cal/OSHA files show.

Mountain Celebration That same summer, safety section asbestos inspectors were feted at a Latch-On hog roast and country music party in the San Bernardino National Forest, according to the three inspectors.

An official with Omega Construction said the company hired Waldron to conduct training sessions for Omega workers in Phoenix and Houston last spring, and recently hired Associated Safety Consultants to do lab work. The Omega official said he saw no conflict in the arrangement because Waldron does not award asbestos contracts. He said Associated got the lab work because its service is prompt and reasonably priced.

Officials with Baker and Lovett Filter said they stopped doing business with Associated Safety Consultants long ago to avoid the appearance of a conflict.

Lovett president William Lovett said, however, that Waldron “never put the arm on us” to get consulting work. “I thought he was very above board . . . and I’m not his buddy.”

Ken Smuland, Lovett general manager, said his firm used to deliver air samples to Associated at the school district building at 1425 S. San Pedro St., where the safety section has its offices and lab.

Alex Gousseinov, one of the asbestos inspectors, said he analyzed scores of air and bulk samples for Associated in the safety section lab. He said he did the work mainly on weekends and breaks, and that Waldron made it clear that school business was to be done first.

Gousseinov said he did private work in the lab from about the spring of 1983 until the spring of 1984. About this time, he said, Associated Safety Consultants purchased its own microscope.

Both Gousseinov and Susie Wong, another inspector who moonlighted for Associated Safety Consultants, said they were uncomfortable using the district lab but were reassured by Waldron and Flaherty.

Wong, who said all her work for Associated was on personal time, said she told Waldron and Flaherty “that I didn’t feel it (using the lab) was very ethical.” She said they told her the arrangement was temporary, and that “they didn’t like the situation either.”

Gousseinov, Wong and Bill Piazza, a third asbestos inspector who also worked for Associated Safety Consultants, said no disciplinary action was taken against them as a result of the school district probe.

Flaherty abruptly resigned as a safety officer in late October. The school district’s Koch would not say if Flaherty’s departure was connected to the inquiry.

Koch said he is confident that the consulting arrangement never compromised the safety of district pupils or staff. “I have a high degree of confidence that our (asbestos removal) program is one of the leading programs in the nation,” he said.