State May Pull Asbestos-Removal Firm’s License

In a rare enforcement action in the burgeoning asbestos removal industry, Cal/OSHA has scheduled a hearing Wednesday to determine if it should revoke the license of Dae Woo Engineering, a Los Angeles firm accused of putting untrained, ill-equipped laborers to work removing dangerous asbestos.

Dae Woo officials maintain that the Cal/OSHA hearing is an outgrowth of agency overzealousness and say they will fight the charges.

The hearing comes as a growing number of workers, businesses and enforcement agencies have begun bringing legal action against asbestos makers and removal firms. When a building is remodeled, federal law requires removal of the insulating material, which has been linked to lung diseases.

Although it apparently has not been the target of any civil suit concerning its work, Dae Woo Engineering could be the first of the 271 OSHA-registered asbestos removal firms in California to be stripped of its license. In a separate Cal/OSHA action, it is also under investigation for possible criminal prosecution.

Cal/OSHA declined to say why it is reviewing Dae Woo.

The construction and asbestos removal firm, founded 13 years ago by engineer James Bong, has 50 employees. It has removed asbestos from buildings ranging from Army facilities to Mid-Wilshire high-rises, according to Rick Walker, a manager at Dae Woo.

Separately, the firm has been cited at least nine times for “serious” or “willful” violations of Cal/OSHA rules, including failing to adequately sample the air at work sites for asbestos particles, failing to properly train workers and failing to “make available, at no cost to the employees, comprehensive medical exams,” according to government documents. The firm has appealed the citations.

Dae Woo officials and a consulting firm with which Dae Woo has worked said the allegations are based largely on a disgruntled employee’s complaints.

But a former company project manager, Randall Lee, said Dae Woo “obeyed none of the rules and tried to cut costs by hiring” immigrant laborers who were unknowledgeable about their rights to work-site safeguards.

“These workers were doing asbestos removal without any protective equipment,” Lee said. “Basically, the company would close the door to the building so nobody could see and just started stripping asbestos out of the building” without protection.

Chris W. Phillips, a technician at the Van Nuys-based consulting firm EPI Center Inc., which has supervised two Dae Woo asbestos removal projects, said: “I think some of the allegations against them (Dae Wood) are exaggerated. . . . Their work has been fine. They had a problem with containment at one building, but (it) was corrected.”

That comment drew support from a Cal/OSHA inspector who wrote last year that “nothing too wrong was noted” when he examined a Dae Woo asbestos removal project at 941 S. Vermont Ave. Dae Woo later drew three Cal/OSHA citations for work at that building.

“We expect that when all the facts are known that Dae Woo will still be in the business of removing asbestos safely and without criticism from Cal/OSHA,” said Frederick L. Walker, an Oakland attorney representing Dae Woo.