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Developer faces fine in asbestos removal
[December 02, 2008]

Developer faces fine in asbestos removal


(New Haven Register (New Haven, CT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dec. 2--NEW HAVEN -- Brooklyn developer State Assets LLC faces a $48,100 fine stemming from a multi-agency investigation into allegations that unprotected workers were removing asbestos from an unventilated State Street property, that piles of asbestos-coated debris had been left unsecured outside, and that illegal immigrants sleeping on cots inside had been carting the tainted material out at night.



The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced Monday that it has cited State Assets for 18 willful and serious violations of health and safety standards at the 1175 State St. site. The citations include a "willful" citation for lack of asbestos monitoring. Willful violations are considered those committed "with plain indifference to or intentional disregard for employee safety and health." The remaining 17 serious citations were issued in cases where "death or serious physical harm is likely to result from hazards about which the employer know or should have known," including cases of exposed live electrical wires and unlabeled containers of hazardous chemicals.

OSHA spokesman Ted Fitzgerald said State Assets received the citations Nov. 25, and had 15 business days from that date, until Dec. 16, to contest OSHA's allegations. A meeting has been scheduled with OSHA and State Assets for Wednesday, Fitzgerald said.


State Assets principal Joshua Guttman was unavailable for comment Monday, and a worker who answered the phone at the company's Brooklyn office said no one else was able to comment on the case.

"Employees who were removing asbestos-containing materials at this site lacked basic safeguards that must be in place before performing such work," said Robert Kowalski, OSHA's area director in Bridgeport in a prepared statement. "In addition, they were exposed to serious and potentially fatal fire, electrocution and chemical hazards."

Investigators from numerous state, federal and city agencies, including OSHA, the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Criminal Investigation Division and the Department of Public Health descended on the century-old factory at State and James streets last June following a worker's complaint about conditions there.

Crews had been removing old tiles and clearing the former Universal Hotel Liquidators site there for new tenants since last February.

Investigators discovered five cots on the second floor of the building and a pile of construction debris outside that tested positive for asbestos. The city issued a cease and desist order halting the construction and use of the factory as a residence.

The EPA will neither confirm nor deny the existence of an ongoing investigation.

While a project manager claimed State Assets had tested the site and did not find asbestos, court and city Building Department records show the developer had been aware of its presence since at least 2003.

Records show State Assets tested the site in 2003 and found asbestos in both the tiles and roof of the building. In 2004, Guttman agreed to "fix all of the asbestos and leaks in the walls" at the Universal Hotel Liquidators' site.

Allegations of shady construction have dogged State Assets Principal Joshua Guttman and his son, Jack Guttman, for years, including 434 criminal charges still pending in a Brooklyn court -- one count for each day the Guttmans failed to repair dilapidated piers and crumbling concrete bulkheads at the Greenpoint Terminal Market along the Brooklyn waterfront.

The pair face fines of up to $5,000 for each count.

Most of the 19th-century industrial buildings there burned over several days in 2005 during a massive fire started by a homeless squatter.

The Guttmans' latest troubles here bear resemblance to an investigation into improper removal of asbestos at the Temple Street Liberty Building in 1997, which ended in prison sentences for 74-year-old Melvin Weintraub and his subcontractors, John Dawson and Salvatore Napolitano.

The crew was accused of allowing unprotected workers to remove asbestos, and for falsifying documents suggesting they had properly abated and disposed of the material.

Weintraub and his companies Liberty Realty and Morelite Development and Construction were ordered to pay $850,000 in fines and set up a trust to monitor the health of four workers exposed to asbestos.

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