Articles

The early 1930s Hawk’s Nest Tunnel disaster in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia is considered one of the greatest industrial tragedies in American history. While the exact number of workers who perished due to working on this project is not known, estimates put the death toll over 1000. The culprit? Crystalline silica. Silica is ubiquitous. It is a major component of the earth’s crust and is found in nearly every form of rock. If you have ever walked on beach sand, you were walking on silica. Bu...

The recent concerns and complaints over the natural gas storage well leak in the Porter Ranch area of Los Angeles has been a big news story. However, most if not all of the symptoms that people reported don’t match the known symptoms of exposure to the chemicals involved.  Methane – the main ingredient in natural gas – is not toxic.  Meanwhile, tert-butyl mercaptan, the odorant added to the gas (so you know when you have a gas leak, so you don’t have an explosion and...