What happens at Florida&#;s lone lead smelter

What does Gopher do? Gopher Resource recycles lead-acid batteries. The plant is called a secondary lead smelter because it doesn&#;t actually produce new lead from ore; it recycles lead that already exists. (There are no more primary lead smelters in the United States.) The recycling process works like this: used batteries are broken open, the lead is extracted and then melted in furnaces and purified with chemicals in the refinery. It&#;s then poured into molds and sold as new blocks. Those blocks go to companies that include battery and ammunition manufacturers.

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What are the dangers? During the battery breaking, lead smelting and refining processes, poisonous lead dust and fumes are released into the air, exposing workers. The dust then coats the pipes and floor inside the plant. Molten lead is also a danger, sometimes splashing workers during chemical explosions. Workers also can be exposed to other toxic substances, including cadmium, arsenic and sulfur dioxide.

What is a baghouse? At Gopher, this is a multi-story building that plays one of the most important roles in protecting the community from pollution. It is designed to receive and filter the dangerous dust created in other areas of the plant. The dust travels to the baghouse through a system of pipes and vents and is routed to small, cell-like rooms. Inside are cloth bags. At regular intervals throughout the day, the bags dump the dust into a hopper after becoming too full. The dust then travels by way of a conveyor belt system to a large mixing machine, where it&#;s treated with water and chemicals and ultimately discharged into the city of Tampa&#;s wastewater system.

What&#;s the danger? Workers emerged covered in dust that was laden with lead and cancer-causing cadmium. Sometimes they passed out because of the heat and the fumes. Often their respirators were overwhelmed. Their skin developed rashes. Some workers saw the lead shoot up in their blood. Others were whisked to the hospital after their bodies seized up. Multiple baghouse veterans report lingering body pains, heart and breathing problems.

Under the best circumstances, an automatic device empties the bags. But because of design and engineering flaws, the automatic function didn&#;t work for years. Workers were forced to enter the cells and manually shake the bags, amid soaring temperatures and gas levels.

The assembly line-like system that transports the dust jammed often; workers got blanketed in poisons trying to fix the machines. Workers also have been overwhelmed by the dust swarms that overtook the lower level of the baghouse.

Why did workers shake the dust bags? Gopher&#;s lead-making process is delicate and interconnected. A dust-clogged baghouse can shut down the entire furnace department and bring the production of lead to a halt. The company estimates it loses $500 every minute the furnaces aren&#;t operating.

What are furnace exhaust hoods? Furnace exhaust hoods are designed to capture gases, dust and fumes that are released during the lead-smelting process. The hoods are supposed to vent the poisonous substances out of the work area and into ducts that travel to the baghouse.

What are refining kettles? Refining kettles are huge circular containers into which molten lead is poured and chemicals are added to rid the metal of impurities. Workers add a variety of different substances to the kettles, including calcium and arsenic.

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Lead smelter/refinery workers in the US have had significant exposure to lead and are an important occupational group to study to understand the health effects of chronic lead exposure in adults. Recent research found evidence that studies of lead smelter/refinery workers have been conducted but not published. This paper presents further evidence for this contention.

Background

In , an article published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine (AJIM) pointed out the dearth of literature on the mortality of smelter workers: &#;In view of the historic importance of smelter workers in the field of occupational medicine, however, it is surprising that until very recently little data were available about the mortality experience of these workers&#;.1

The authors' observation was astute. At the time the AJIM article appeared (), there was one published cohort study of the mortality of US lead smelter/refinery workers,2 and several published studies of the mortality of US copper smelter workers (Anaconda (Montana),3 Tacoma (Washington),4&#;8 and Kennecott (Utah)9), all but two3,8 of these studies were industry sponsored. Two of the industry-sponsored studies6,9 were turned over to NIOSH/OSHA in unpublished form during the mid-s occupational standard setting process for inorganic arsenic, and were subsequently published.

A recent study presented evidence that the mortality experience of some US lead smelter workers was studied in the s, yet the results do not appear to have been published.10 This article presents evidence from the early s that further supports this contention.

US primary lead smelting/refining

In the mid-s, the US was a world leader in primary smelting of lead, producing approximately 579&#;000&#;mt of lead in ,11 at six primary lead smelters. Primary smelting is a key step in the production of lead from ore that has been mined. Smelting involves heating concentrated ore to high temperatures to separate metals of interest from impurities in the ore. Refining is the last stage of lead production. At lead refineries lead bullion is melted to recover precious metals and to remove any remaining contaminants. Prior to the promulgation and enforcement of federal occupational standards for lead, primary lead smelter and refinery workers in the US could have very high exposures to lead. Mean airborne lead concentrations measured in primary smelters and lead refineries have been reported to be as high as &#;μg/m3.12 For comparison, the OSHA Permissible Exposure Limit for lead set in is 50&#;μg/m3, averaged over an 8-hour day.13 Primary smelting and refining of lead no longer occurs in the United States. The last operating primary lead smelter, located in Herculaneum, Missouri closed in . However, primary production of lead worldwide continues to increase, with production topping four million metric tons in . Increasingly, primary production of lead occurs in China and other developing countries.14 Thus, the health effects of lead exposure in primary smelting and refining remains a significant occupational health issue.

Cohort studies of the mortality experience of US primary lead smelter/refinery workers

In , when National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published its first criteria document on lead, there were no published studies of the mortality experience of US primary lead smelter/refinery workers available for consideration.15 In , as debate ensued over a protective occupational lead standard, with lead industry advocates generally arguing for no change in the existing 200&#;μg/m3 workplace air standard and that a Blood Lead Level (BLL) of 80&#;μg/dL in an adult worker was not necessarily harmful,16 the first retrospective cohort study was published that included workers in US primary lead smelters and refineries. This study was funded by the International Lead Zinc Research Organization (ILZRO) and included a large population of workers from 16 US lead plants, but only one primary smelter and two refineries. Though the workers in the ILZRO cohort had high exposure to lead during the period studied, battery plant workers, who comprised the majority of workers in the study ( of ), had lower average blood lead levels than smelter/refinery workers (63&#;μg/dL compared to 80&#;μg/dL).2 None of the lead plants included in the study were identified by name. The authors concluded, &#;Considering the high levels of exposure in this population of workers and the small deviations from expected mortality, one can be optimistic in predicting no detectable effect on the mortality of male adults from occupational exposure to lead controlled in conformity to currently recommended environmental and biologic standards&#;.2 This industry-funded study supported the lead industry's contention that a change in the existing workplace lead standard was not needed.

The second US cohort mortality study of smelter workers was published in ,17 with a follow-up study published in .18 It was conducted by NIOSH at the Bunker Hill smelter in Idaho and remains the only epidemiologic cohort study exclusively focused on the mortality of US primary lead smelter workers. Because the first study on this cohort was published in , after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) lead standard was set in , its findings did not inform the standard setting process. The study found excess deaths from chronic renal disease and renal cancer.17

Evidence of unpublished industry studies of primary lead workers

A recently published article examined documents produced in legal discovery relating to internal industry discussion of findings from a mortality study of workers in American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) lead smelters and refineries between and , and completed in . At the time, ASARCO was one of the world's largest producers of nonferrous metals. The discussion about the findings was recorded in internal corporate correspondence, but the same was unable to be located (missing study 1). One key finding was that the lead workers studied had excess deaths from cancer, though specific cancer site/s were not mentioned, but not from kidney disease, hypertension or stroke. The study was not published in the peer reviewed literature based on a search of pubmed.10

While conducting research on another topic and reading internal lead industry documents, the author became aware of additional ASARCO studies examining the mortality experience of lead smelter and refinery workers, at the East Helena lead smelter in Montana and at the Omaha lead refinery in Nebraska. I present the discussion of the findings, which occurred at an internal industry meeting, and report the context of other published research on the mortality experience of highly lead-exposed workers. Like missing study 1 above, the East Helena and Omaha studies (missing studies 2 and 3) were not published in the peer-reviewed literature based on a search of pubme.

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