[click the above image to enlarge and read] So, would you willingly trade decades at the end of your life for today's and next week's paycheck? If the trade-off risks were known with greater or lesser degrees of certainty would that influence your considering the risk-benefit balance? Go figure.
It certainly would be good to see Iron Range politicians and DFL governor wannabes Rukivina and Baak get into this situation with a forceful and determined two pronged position to first of all get to the bottom of the facts about what exact risks exist; and secondly with a commitment that it will not be studied to death without real reform being implemented.
Yes we need at least one more study where samples are taken by disinterested parties and tested by other than industry sweetheart testing outfits. But then somebody has to act to protect the health of workers, and with taconite tailings being promoted more and more widely as aggregate for paving and other concrete operations, to protect the general public.
If it is the minerals in the bulk taconite material itself that present the actual hazard, and not trace amounts of asbestos as is always given out as the industry and affiliated party version of truth, then how much is a four million dollar study that from the start ignores the question of the hazard of the main materials really worth?
We truly need a new sheriff in town because the current one's been compromised, if the Minnesota Dept. of Health is not looking at the entire picture, especially the taconite material itself, tons of which are being transported out of the Iron Range for paving purposes in other locales.
Here, with a big hat tip to Twin Cities Daily Planet, is the latest story I am aware of on topic, presented above first via the opening screenshot, and then below by limited further excerpting of a paragraph or two.
Here is a very sobering excerpt, especially for those off the Range, but having the road in front of the house blacktopped with taconite tailings aggregate used:
Asbestos: no single definition
Scientists, regulatory agencies and companies have differing definitions of asbestos, Ramachandran said.
The outcomes are different when each group counts asbestos exposures, he said.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration defines an asbestos particle as being at least 5 micrometers long, and having a length three times its width.
This definition does not take mineralogical aspects into account, Ramachandran said. Taconite fibers have a similar shape to asbestos and fit this definition.
The taconite fibers may have similar health risks to asbestos, but are not counted as asbestos by mining companies.
And then there is silica [quartz] dust as an added hazard apart from the fibrous taconite main material and from varities of "asbestos," Daily Plantet reporting:
The quartz level on the western Mesabi Range is around 55 to 60 percent, according to the results of a 2001 study by University of Minnesota researcher and geologist Lawrence Zanko, who took [a mere] 18 taconite samples from five mines in the area [and had all testing done by only a single firm, one some contend is a sweetheart lab for the mines].
MSHA's limit on silica was created in 1973 at the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, and was designed to limit exposures to.1 milligram per cubic meter over eight hours, the Department of Labor said in a written statement.
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygenists now recommends a 25 microgram (1,000 times smaller than a milligram) exposure limit, but MSHA's limit remains unchanged.
In terms of testing lab survival and prosperity, any messenger consistently bringing bad rather than good news could be subject to a "Kill the messenger" response. Other replacement messengers can be found. Not that such potential wrongful motivations can be proven to have yielded tainted or false data in the recent past, but neither can a study be proven absolutely free of bias or taint. Study conclusions are only as good as sampling and testing protocols and bad data in a study makes it a bad study. It is always a worry for which no precaution can be a 100% cure. But using multiple testing labs, and overlapping samples so that some are tested by multiple labs, plus getting more than eighteen samples, are all steps that could have resulted in more reliable results for the mentioned Zanko study.
In defense of what was done, infinite money can with infinite time yield much, much more data; but not necessarily a provably better end result; and Zanko was constrained to optimize his effort based on the funding available.
But then neither Zanko nor others should go about saying "Zanko proved this and that is safe" when another three year study of safety is in fact not yet concluded. When concluded, it can be said to have yielded best currently available results; but not perfect results, nor can it be said to have absolutely proven taconite tailings in paving in front of my home to be hazard free. Tests cannot do that, and interpretations are always probabilistic and not absolute.
For the entire story thread in one place, please read the original report, again, this link.