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QuanTEM Chronicle
An informative Newsletter for Environmental Professionals |
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Message from John Barnett, President |
 | | John Barnett, President. |
Well ladies and gentlemen it's the end of the third quarter and the holiday season is just around the corner. Now days, the years fly by a little too fast; I hope this was a good summer for everyone business wise and personally. QuanTEM continues to experience good steady growth and we look forward to fall and finishing out another good year. We want to thank our longtime loyal customers as well as those who have just joined us this year. It's your efforts which help make QuanTEM successful. From all of us, "Thanks for Your Continuing Business".
John Barnett President QuanTEM Laboratories, LLC |
| Asbestos Removal Blamed for Illness of 17 Post Office Workers |
By Charles McMahon and Aaron Davis
news@seacoastonline.com
September 02, 2011 2:00 AM
EXETER - The town post office was evacuated Thursday morning after several employees fell ill with symptoms blamed  on an asbestos removal project. Tom Rizzo, northern New England's spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said 28 employees were evacuated from the facility. Rizzo said 17 were transported to Exeter Hospital for observation and treatment. Assistant Fire Chief Ken Berkenbush said employees of the Front Street post office had symptoms including nausea, light-headedness, dizziness and chest pains. Assisting with the transport of the victims were two ambulances from Exeter, a pair of ambulances from Kingston and one from Epping. "They weren't in any immediate danger," Berkenbush said of the employees. As of 3:30 p.m., all the employees were treated and released, according to Exeter Hospital spokeswoman Debra Vasapolli. Firefighters and paramedics responded to the post office around 9:30 a.m. and found the sick workers outside, behind the facility. Berkenbush said the illnesses were caused by "off-gassing" from a solvent crews used Wednesday night to remove asbestos tiles from inside the building. "They were doing asbestos removal, and the solvents they used to pick up the tiles seeped into the wood flooring and caused a reaction," said Berkenbush. "It started off-gassing," or releasing carbon monoxide and other gases, which can be a by-product of volatile organic compounds often found in solvents. Fire Lt. Donald Matheson said a human's normal threshold for carbon monoxide exposure before suffering symptoms is 9 parts per million. "If someone is in that atmosphere for a prolonged period of time, it can cause some adverse health effects," Matheson said. Crews taking readings inside the building found levels as high as 30 parts per million at the source, Berkenbush said. Employees who fell ill had likely been breathing in the gas since the start of their work day, Matheson said. "The longer you're in that atmosphere, the more health problems you'll have," he said. READ MORE.
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| Asbestos Industry launches campaign to clean image | The Canadian Press Date: Sunday Sep. 25, 2011 1:39 PM ET A prominent asbestos merchant is headed to Parliament Hill as part of a broader counter-offensive to salvage the reputation of his beleaguered industry. Baljit Chadha is fighting back this week after Canada's asbestos sector has absorbed a public-relations pummelling, both here and abroad, in recent months.  The public-relations battle comes at a critical time. The Quebec government is considering whether to help Chadha save one of Canada's last two asbestos mines, in the town of Asbestos, with an Oct. 1 deadline looming on a decision. Chadha is now determined to dispel what he describes as myths about the contentious mineral, which he argues has been unfairly vilified by a highly organized "anti-asbestos lobby." Chadha plans face-to-face meetings Monday with his most vocal critics, including New Democrat MP Pat Martin. Afterwards, the Montreal businessman will meet with Rideau Institute president Steven Staples and communicate by teleconference with Kathleen Ruff, a human-rights activist and tireless asbestos foe. These meetings are just the beginning of his pro-asbestos blitz. He is planning to launch a public-relations campaign that includes a detailed advertisement titled, "What is chrysotile -- Asbestos?" Chadha said he also hopes to meet with the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Cancer Society and editorial boards of major newspapers. However, the CMA said in an email Sunday that it has no intention of meeting with Chadha. "The CMA's position on asbestos is clear: we are opposed to mining, use and export of asbestos," it added. READ MORE. |
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You're INVITED! | |
QuanTEM Laboratories invites you to an OPEN HOUSE at our lab in Oklahoma City!
We want to show our appreciation to you, our clients for being such great friends & customers throughout the past 22 years!
OCTOBER 14, 2011
FROM 4-7PM
Enjoy food, drinks, door prizes and much more with your favorite lab!
Please RSVP or call us for more information!
We look forward to seeing you on October 14th!
2033 Heritage Park Drive
(800) 822-1650
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Editors Note | |
By: Scott Leavell, Business Development Director, QuanTEM Laboratories, LLC
Beginning July 1, 2011, QuanTEM Laboratories is now participating in AIHA's Industrial Hygiene Laboratory Accreditation Program (IHLAP).
QuanTEM's AIHA accreditations which include Environmental Microbiology (EMLAP) and Environmental Lead (ELLAP) will now include Phase-Contrast Microscopy Analysis (PCM) for the Asbestos/Fiber Microscopy Core category. AIHA LAB CODE 101352 For more information on QuanTEM's lab services and accreditations, please email me at sleavell@quantem.com or call me at (800) 822-1650!
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Mold Shuts Down Another Local School | Updated: Friday, 23 Sep 2011, 5:20 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 23 Sep 2011, 4:57 PM EDT SICKLERVILLE, N.J. - Toxic mold has shut down another South Jersey school, for the second time since summer storms began causing problems.  The latest closure is at Winslow Township School Number 2 in Sicklerville, N.J. The school took on water during Hurricane Irene last month. Late Monday night, district officials discovered mold had set in. Kids got in one more day of school Tuesday, but the district cancelled the rest of the school week., which means third grader Amber Wahid is home too, learning how to put on makeup instead of learning. "There's so much writing, it just goes to my head and it hurts," says Amber. With all the wet weather the past couple of months, schools like this one are facing new challenges beyond teaching kids. District officials are learning all about mold remediation while parents are trying to figure out what to do with their kids. "I'm very lucky I'm at home. I feel bad for the parents having to find arrangements for their kids, I  don't know how they do it," said Samira Wahid. The district is waiting for air quality test results today. If there are still problems, the district says it has a "Plan B" for next week, to get kids back into the classroom. They'll let parents know before the end of the weekend. READ MORE. |
Houston getting $3 Million in Lead Paint Campaign |
Associated PressPublished 11:50 a.m., Thursday, September 15, 2011 FORT WORTH - More than $11 million has been earmarked for some Texas communities to help protect children from lead-based paint poisoning. The grants are part of $93 million in HUD funds available nationwide. HUD says the money will help clean lead and other health hazards in privately owned low-income housing units, plus help with safety training. Lead-based paint was banned for residential use in 1978, but HUD estimates that about 24 million U.S. homes still have significant lead-based paint hazards. READ MORE. |
Fall Allergy Season May be Longest, Strongest This Year |
By COURTNEY HUTCHISON, ABC News Medical Unit
Sept. 9, 2011
With record pollen counts already on the board for August, this fall is gearing up to be one of the worst, and longest, allergy seasons yet, according to allergy experts.
"We're going to have an allergy double whammy," says Dr. Clifford Bassett, Medical director of Allergy and Asthma Care of New York. To top it all off, the allergy season is expected to last a few weeks longer than usual this year, according to research published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While spring allergies usually come from pollen from trees and grass, fall allergies are caused almost exclusively by ragweed pollen. The season usually runs from mid-August until the first frost of the year, around early October, but if the frost is delayed, as is predicted for this year, the allergy season goes on indefinitely until it comes.
With record pollen counts already on the board for August, this fall is gearing up to be one of the worst, and longest, allergy seasons yet, according to allergy experts. For many years, the allergy seasons have been "getting longer and longer ... partly due to global warming," says Estelle Levetin, chairwoman of the aerobiology committee for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. "As we're seeing warmer and warmer weather, the fall gets warmer and longer and the effect is that there's no frost to kill the ragweed and end the allergy season," she says. Rising temperatures have produced a similar lengthening of the spring allergy season, which is now starting about a month earlier than it did decades ago, she says. Climate change isn't only affecting the length of the allergy season, it's affecting the severity. "A single ragweed plant produces a million pollen grains, but if you expose it to greenhouse gases, it produces three to four times that much," says Bassett. "So you have climate change making for a longer season, more plants and more potent pollen. It's like a perfect storm," he says.  Bassett says that he's already seeing a surge in patients coming in with fall allergies, many of whom have never experienced fall allergies before. "The immune system is not always predictable, sometimes there's a threshold and when the pollen gets bad enough, all of a sudden you have people with allergies who never had them before," he says. The pollen and mold in the air is also poised to aggravate asthma. READ MORE. |
Drought Brings out the Bugs |
Posted: 9:31 PM Jul 25, 2011, Retreived August 31, 2011
Reporter: Kristen Shanahan
LONE GROVE, OK -- These hot and dry weather conditions are bringing in unwanted visitors to homes. Kristen Shanahan shows us who is trying to break in -- and why.
 | | Varied Carpet Beetle |
We aren't the only ones trying to escape the extreme heat and dry conditions. So are our "pesty" neighbors. Pest Controller Mike Burns says he has done his job for fourteen years but business has really taken off this summer as insects invade homes, seeking cooler temperatures and water. "I have seen it the busiest I've ever seen it," Burns said. Burns says they've seen problems with spiders, scorpions and hornets, but the most troublesome of all have been the ants. "The ants are extremely bad this year due to the weather. The dryness, they're going to the sinks," Burns said. Burns says a lot of outside watering will attract insects to your front door, and that the drought has caused creatures like hornets to resort to things like flower pots to quench
 | | Fire Ant. |
their thirst. And he isn't only seeing the infestation on the job, but at his home too. "My wife watered and I had to treat the fire ants in the backyard." Burns warns other people to take precautions to avoid these little intruders. He recommends sealing up holes or any openings where bugs can crawl through. And he has a piece of advice to avoid a certain type of sting... "Now the scorpions have been bad, and what I can tell people--don't throw those pillows in the floor. Because the scorpions, if you have scorpions, can possibly get in the pillow and go back up on the bed. I have seen this situation," Burns warns. READ MORE. |
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You can email me at HERE or call me at (800) 822-1650
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QuanTEM Chronicle Newsletter
Produced & Edited by
Scott Leavell, Business Development Director
Suggestions or comments? Email me here. |
Disclaimer Any publication included in this News Letter and/or opinions expressed therein do not necessarily reflect the views of QuanTEM Laboratories, LLC but remain solely those of the author(s). Such publications have been included only for ease of reference and academic purposes.
QuanTEM Labortories, LLC
(405) 755-2058 facimile
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water left over from summer flooding