Asbestos Violator Gets 3-Year Probation

A San Diego contractor convicted of removing asbestos from a Navy ship without following federal safety laws, possibly exposing dozens of people to the carcinogen, was sentenced Monday to three years of supervised probation, including six months at a rehabilitation center that would allow him to leave only for work, U.S. Atty. William Braniff said.

Frank Chavez, whose company was hired to remove asbestos-covered piping from the aircraft carrier Ranger, also was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service in the sentence handed down by U.S. Magistrate Irma E. Gonzalez, a statement issued by Braniff said. Chavez’s company, California Marine Commercial Insulation, was fined $25,000.

Chavez and his company were convicted on two misdemeanor counts each for failing to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency laws regulating the removal of asbestos, identified as a hazardous substance in 1971. Chavez plead guilty to one of the charges in August--failure to notify the EPA that he was going to remove asbestos. But Gonzalez found that he also had violated EPA work practice standards, including failure to label the removed asbestos, to wet it down before working with it and to seal it in leak-proof containers, the statement said.

Former workers with the company told The Times in August that they had ripped out crumbling asbestos in bathrooms, berthing rooms and stairways, and the brig of the ship last winter, while sailors were aboard. They said they carried the asbestos through the ship and piled it on the hangar deck, often without wearing protective clothing or masks.

A naval investigative team, called together after one of the workers complained of unsafe practices by his company, identified 30 sailors who might have been exposed to airborne asbestos fibers, Capt. Charlie Robinson, safety officer with the Pacific Fleet’s Naval Air Force, told The Times in September.

The county Air Pollution Control District also was called in to determine whether violations of EPA laws took place. An APCD investigator testified that the workers had placed the asbestos in a refuse bin without wetting it down, which helps keep it from crumbling into a powder and releasing fibers into the air, said district spokesman Bob Goggin.

“There is no safe level of exposure to asbestos fiber established,” Goggin said, adding that asbestos has been linked to many cancers and a fatal lung ailment called asbestosis. The four-month investigation prompted the APCD to inspect other ships in San Diego for unsafe asbestos removal practices, Goggin said. Thirty-four violations involving 13 vessels and eight private contractors were discovered, all for failing to notify the EPA that they were going to remove asbestos. Two Navy command units were cited for failing to supervise working procedures aboard the ships.

The case is the seventh in the nation successfully prosecuted against people and companies who violated asbestos removal laws, the statement said.