Clapper, Patti, Schweizer and Mason

The owners of Flatbush Gardens, an apartment complex in Brooklyn, New York have been cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for allowing several workers to come in contact with various hazardous materials including asbestos. 

In all, 20 citations for violations were levied against the property management company Renaissance Equity Holdings which added up to over $51,000 in fines.  The building complex is home to 59 buildings on Foster Avenue in Brooklyn.  Workers complained to OSHA after concerns about the safety of the worksite were not addressed by the owners.  In fact, the workers say that the company locked 70 of their fellow employees out after the concerns were brought up.  When OSHA was called in to assess the safety of workers and the conditions they were in the inspectors were shocked. 

Kay Gee, OSHA's Manhattan area director, issued a statement saying "our inspections found maintenance workers exposed to a variety of health and safety hazards while performing their duties, including stripping paint, removing drywall and clearing basements of raw sewage that had backed up during heavy rains."  While many of the violations and fines were for what the OSHA representative called “basic safety and health issues,” perhaps the greatest long term health risk to the workers came when they were exposed to asbestos.

Asbestos was a common additive to building products prior to and during the 1970s.  It was used in sealants and adhesives, paints and insulation, and even structural materials such as wallboard and floor and ceiling tiles.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) severely restricted the use of asbestos containing materials in 1985 but thousands of building built before then contain the carcinogen.

Asbestos can cause numerous diseases and health crises, the most serious and deadly of which is mesothelioma, a certain type of cancer caused by the inhalation or ingestion of airborne asbestos fibers.

Fifteen of the other violations were classified as “serious” and posed a significant risk to life and limb for the workers.  In addition, the owners were cited for improperly documenting workplace injuries. 

Not only did the company fail to provide the workers with the necessary equipment to keep them safe from these hazards, it didn’t even test for the presence of asbestos before allowing work to begin—a violation of federal safety standards.

The attorney for Equity Holdings said that "no prior violations have ever been found at Flatbush Gardens and none of the citations issued were classified as willful or repetitive," but that doesn’t matter. 

The EPA has recognized that there are no safe levels of asbestos and any amount of exposure can cause mesothelioma.  While the risk does increase with repeated or prolonged exposure, being in a contaminated area for any amount of time could potentially lead to the deadly disease.