Tampabay: Workers describe hellish conditions

[Times files (1980)]
A report released Thursday by a federal watchdog official recommends that the government assess the health of those who worked at the Stauffer Chemical plant, shown here in 1980.

By ROBERT FARLEY

Vernon Hudson says that his doctor has likened his lungs to paste board, not providing enough oxygen to his body and sapping him of the energy to walk more than a few feet at a time.

[Times photo: Brendan Fitterer]
Jim Taylor, 64, says workers at Stauffer Chemical were regularly exposed to dangerous substances during his eight years there as maintenance mechanic.

Hudson, 77, blames his 33-year employment at Stauffer Chemical for his ailments. Every day he becomes more dependent on portable oxygen to help him breathe. And he said he is dying.

So you'll excuse him if he isn't overly excited about the blockbuster report unveiled Thursday by a federal watchdog official who recommends the government assess the health of former Stauffer employees.

"Whatever we're going to get out of it we'd better get pretty quick or it won't be doing me a hell of a lot of good," Hudson of Holiday said.

While Stauffer executives have maintained that no one has ever connected working conditions at the plant to current health problems, former employees have told journalists, attorneys and government investigators that working at Stauffer exposed them to pollution-filled smoke, dust, asbestos and other harmful substances.

Ronnie Wilson, ombudsman for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, talked to a number of former employees like Hudson as part of his investigation. He heard tales of deplorable working conditions, including this stark assessment from an unnamed former employee: "The torture in hell could not be any worse."

Wilson has concluded that the health of former workers at the phosphorus-processing plant on the Pinellas-Pasco border "was likely impacted." And now he would like the government to track down the company's former employees -- about 2,000 of whom are believed to be still living -- and assess their health.

Jim Taylor, an eight-year Stauffer employee now living in Clearwater, said the tests are long overdue.

On Friday, he described working conditions that regularly exposed workers to everything from asbestos to arsenic to radiation.

Taylor, 64, a maintenance mechanic at Stauffer from 1973 to 1981, described one chore in which he donned an asbestos suit to weld atop a working furnace in temperatures above 250 degrees, all the while breathing in noxious fumes.

Water fountains provided little relief, Taylor said. The acidic taste of the water was "like biting your mouth on the inside," he said. Even the filters that were eventually installed were little help.

Then there were the days spent grinding asbestos from gaskets and pipes, with asbestos fibers flying around in the air. It was only after a year that the company decided workers ought to be wearing protective masks, he said.

"This was one place you didn't want to work," said Taylor. "But it was the only place around that paid halfway decent."

A pay stub shows that he earned $192 a week, enough, he said, "to provide a decent living for the family."

The worst jobs were those in the furnace, where workers had to deal with extreme heat and oppressive fumes.

"It was just dirty, crummy work," he said.

Taylor is astounded that it has taken so long for a government official to acknowledge the importance of testing workers.

"I would say that's a very important thing to do," he said. "This (plant) has diseased people for years. It's a shame this didn't come to a head years ago."

In his report, Wilson quotes a letter that a former Stauffer employee wrote to a state health official describing what it was like to work on the furnace floor and walls. Wilson withheld the employee's name from his report, but said that he confirmed the account through interviews with five other former employees.

"The burnt walls and floors had to be removed with chipping tools," the former employee recalled, adding that the charred walls retained heat for weeks. "The entire crew was organized into three working teams, each of whom could not work on this hot material for longer than 20 minutes."

The employee also recalled that "the company doctor set up his emergency quarters in the lunch room, ready to take out of the furnace any man who fainted from the hellish heat in the devil's roasting box. But I don't recall any man exiting that way."

Hudson, who spent 20 of his 33 years with Stauffer working as a furnace operator, said, "I don't see any hope of anything helping me." But he hopes a study will help some of his former fellow workers.

"It wouldn't hurt anything to check to see if they have anything connected with it," Hudson said.

Hudson said that employees had no idea about the potential health risks at the plant.

"We didn't know it was damaging us at the time," Hudson said. "We just needed a job and had families to raise. It was just a hellacious mess. It was something you just couldn't believe until you were there."

Hudson is one of five former employees who brought a lawsuit against the company two years ago.

It is an unusual lawsuit, said Wil Florin, one of the attorneys representing the employees, because it does not seek damages. Instead, Florin said, it seeks the establishment of a medical program to provide ongoing health monitoring of all living former workers. The goal is to provide early detection of disease, such as lung, skin, bladder, kidney and liver cancers, as well as asbestos-related diseases, that may be linked to their employment at Stauffer.

"I'm tickled to hear about the fact that somebody in the know who has investigated this agrees with what we're seeking in the lawsuit," Florin said.

Another attorney representing the employees, Erica Harris, said that the case is currently in the discovery stage. Lawyers are seeking a number of company documents to determine the levels of exposure to employees.

Stauffer officials have called Wilson's report speculative, alarmist and lacking in scientific foundation.

In a response to Wilson's report, Stauffer executives said, "Mr. Wilson's report too often overdramatizes issues by repeatedly restating, verbatim, unsubstantiated allegations and self-described "rumors' that previously have been made. Repackaging those allegations in this report does not make them new. Nor does it make them true. And it certainly does not advance decision of any public health questions concerning the site."

In his report, however, Wilson said one worker's compensation report details an employee affected by asbestos, silica and other emissions from Stauffer. Wilson also quotes Dr. Leonard Dunn, who Wilson said told him he had treated four Stauffer employees afflicted with interstitial fibrosis. Three of them are now dead. Interstitial fibrosis is a disorder characterized by the scarring and thickening of the deep lung tissues, leading to shortness of breath.

"There is no question that the exposure (at the plant) led to their condition," Dunn told Wilson.

On Thursday, Dr. Henry Falk, assistant administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said that his agency will return to Tarpon Springs next month with a detailed response to Wilson's report, as well as an outline of additional studies that will be performed.

If the agency is going to test employees, Hudson said, "They'd better get to it."

- Staff writer Robert Farley can be reached at 445-4185 or farley@sptimes.com.