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Humble Sand & Gravel9/17/2004
age 18, he started work for Spincote Plastic Coating Co. in Odessa, where he stayed six months before moving to Corpus Christi to work at Spincote's plant there for three years. Spincote was in the business of using abrasive blasting to clean and condition oilfield tubing. This involved spraying steel tubing with particles of flint shot through a nozzle with compressed air under pressures around 100 p.s.i. Flint is very hard stone composed mostly of crystalline silica (silica dioxide (SiO 2), commonly called quartz), which in its natural, undisturbed state is not at all dangerous. But when flint particles are blasted against metal at high pressure, they not only scour and abrade the surface, they shatter into an airborne dust of smaller particles. Some of this dust is coarse enough to rebound against workers, injuring exposed skin, and to hang in the air, obscuring visibility. But some particles of free silica are so fine -- 5 microns (or about 200 millionths of an inch) in diameter, something like 1/20th the diameter of a human hair -- as to be invisible to the naked eye. The visible dust can clog the nose and mouth but is too coarse to be inhaled into the lungs and is relatively harmless. But the microscopic particles of free silica are both respirable and toxic. Inhaled over months or years, free silica particles cause silicosis, an incurable disease involving a fibrosis and scarring of the lungs and other complications that can eventually result in disability and death. Silicosis is caused only by inhaling free silica. Inhalation of free silica particles cannot be prevented by ordinary, loose-fitting, disposable paper masks; the particles are too small. People working around silica dust must wear air-fed hoods or respirators covering their heads or faces to protect themselves.
The parties here agree, and the record establishes, that the health risks from inhaling silica dust have been well known for a very long time. One of Gomez's expert witnesses, Dr. Eula Bingham, former Assistant Secretary of Labor in charge of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from 1977-1981, observed that Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) linked respiratory disease to mining and stonemasonry, and that the first systematic treatise on occupational disease, De Morbis Artificum, written by Bernardino Ramazzini in 1700, identified silicosis as a pneumoconiosis ("a disease of the lungs caused by the habitual inhalation of irritant... particles") common to stonemasons. Dr. Bingham and another of Gomez's expert witnesses, Dr. Vernon Rose, a certified industrial hygienist, testified that for more than 300 years silicosis has been treated as an occupational disease of flint knappers -- workers who chip flint into desired shapes, such as gunflints. The chipping releases free silica particles into the air. Both Dr. Bingham and Dr. Rose testified that the link between silicosis and abrasive blasting using silica flint was firmly established by physicians and public health officials in the United States and Europe in the early twentieth century.
A tragedy in the 1930s forced the attention of this nation and others to the dangers of silicosis. While constructing Hawk's Nest Tunnel through a mountain near Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, workers dug three miles through rock formations rich in silica. Hundreds died from silicosis and were buried nearby in unmarked graves, as Congressional hearings afterward revealed. Several years later, according to Dr. Bingham, England banned the use of silica in abrasive blasting, and over time other European countries followed suit. Since these events, Dr. Bingham affirmed, it has been "well known throughout the medical and industrial worlds that [silicosis] is an occupational disease" asso
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