Study Cites Dangerous Workplaces : Nader Group Charges U.S. Declined to Warn Employees

A consumer activist group Wednesday disclosed a list of 249 workplaces--14 of them in California-- where the federal government believes that at least 200,000 employees have been exposed to disease-causing chemicals. But it said the government has refused to spend $4 million to warn the workers of the health threat.

The workplaces were targeted in 66 federal studies between 1971 and 1982, according to Public Citizen, a Ralph Nader-founded group that obtained the list under the Freedom of Information Act.

The government’s refusal to warn the workers is evidence that the Reagan Administration “doesn’t care about the health and safety of American workers,” Nader said at a news conference. He suggested that the Administration was trying to protect businesses from lawsuits by injured workers.

The list, compiled by the federal Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, names work sites where employees may have been exposed to such dangerous substances as radiation, coal tar, benzene, PCBs and vinyl chloride. Depending on their exposure, the workers could face diseases ranging from respiratory illnesses to cancer, heart disease and tuberculosis.

Several California companies, including Rockwell International in Canoga Park, which was named for carcinogen exposure, and Diamond Shamrock in Redwood City, which was said to have excessive exposure to bis-chloro-methyl ether, said they had not seen or heard about the study until a reporter called and thus could not comment.

However, Gus Pinoris, a spokesman for Owens Corning in Santa Clara said: “I don’t know where Nader got his information.” He said the 800 employees at the facility “are informed” about the nature of what is made in the plant--fiberglass insulation that is used in homes and commercial buildings.

The Nader group said 59 workers were in danger of respiratory disease because of exposure to fibrous glass in the plant. But Pinoris said the plant had no state or federal OSHA citations pending, and said the plant is in compliance with allowable dust levels.

He also said that company industrial hygienists “survey the plant at least twice a year,” and added that state and federal officials had inspected the plant in the recent past.

Other California companies cited in the federal list, their locations and the substances that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health believes some workers may have been exposed to:

Pine Creek Mine, Bishop, silica dust and diesel exhaust; the former Kaiser Steel plant in Fontana, coal tar, metal and acid fumes; Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Sacramento, PCBs; New Idria Mine, San Jose, silica dust and diesel exhaust; Salz Leather, Santa Cruz, benzidene-derived dyes; Montose, Torrance, chlorinated hydrocarbons; unknown sites, cotton dust in cotton gins.

Carcinogen exposure was listed at Siveco Inc., Los Angeles; Northrop Corp., Newbury Park, and Teledyne Systems, Northridge.

At 86 of the work sites named by the government, 110,000 workers would gain “direct medical (or) health benefits” from a warning that they may have been exposed to dangerous substances, the two agencies said. Another 136 sites employing 138,000 workers “are potentially at high risk of disease.” And 25 other sites, with 6,500 workers, could gain improved working conditions from the notification, the list states.

The government obtained the names of most workers at risk through medical studies that it has conducted. But the Reagan Administration last year rejected a $4-million budget request from the Centers for Disease Control to begin locating and warning several thousand of them, said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, an official of the Public Citizen Health Research Group.

The request was not included by the Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services’ fiscal 1985 budget request.