WC132 SeptOct 2023 - Magazine - Page 19
was among the first to include asbestos in a list
of harmful industrial substances, in 1902, after
a postmortem revealed traces in the lungs of
a young textile factory worker who died from
pulmonary fibrosis. Scientific research progressed
and, in 1932, Britain was again among the first
to introduce regulations requiring ventilation and
making asbestosis—scarring of lung tissue—an
excusable work-related illness.
The number of documented asbestos-related
deaths has been staggering. Fibres were widely used to insulate piping, boilers, and steam
engines in ships, particularly during World War
II, and tens of thousands of people are estimated
to have died from asbestos exposure related to
shipbuilding in the United States alone. At one
Hampton Roads, Virginia shipbuilding centre,
mesothelioma, a highly aggressive cancer, was
reported at seven times the national rate. Still, for
much of the 20th century, scientists and regulators seemed to be living in separate worlds, with
governments and the asbestos industry eventually
coming under fire for failing to adequately inform
the public of the dangers and reduce public exposure. In the late 1970s, court documents revealed
that asbestos industry officials had concealed data
since the 1930s.
As of 2017, Russia was the world’s largest
asbestos producer, mining 53 per cent of the
global supply. Canada provided roughly nine per
cent in 2009, but the country’s remaining two
asbestos mines, both in Québec, closed in 2011,
and the province banned mining the following
year. In 2018, the federal government prohibited
the import, sale, and use of asbestos in Canada, as
well as the manufacture, import, sale, and use of
products containing asbestos, though a limited number of exclusions includes the alkali industry, the military, and nuclear facilities.
While the dangers of airborne transmission are now undisputed, the storyline is different for asbestos found in water. From the
1930s to the early 1970s, asbestos was especially popular as an
additive in cement pipes, with municipalities installing water and
wastewater pipes containing up to 20 per cent asbestos in the hope
of delaying their eventual corrosion. The only significant hiccup
occurred in the late 1960s, when the Environmental Protection
Agency noted abnormal concentrations of asbestos in drinking
water in Duluth, Minnesota, drawn from Lake Superior. Scientists attributed the high levels not to plumbing infrastructure but
to tailings from a nearby iron ore mine, and the EPA ordered the
Reserve Mining Company to stop dumping its waste into the water
body. Still, the agency surveyed municipal drinking water systems
across the country and noted that more than two-thirds of them
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
Abandoned Je昀昀rey Asbestos Mine, Val des Sources, Que.
WATER C AN ADA • SEP TEMBER/OCTOBER
TEMBER/OC TOBER 2023
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