WORKERS KEPT IN DARK ROCKETDYNE'S SILENCE ON BERYLLIUM RISK COULD PROVE DANGEROUS.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

Rocketdyne exposed dozens of workers, far more than previously known, at its Canoga Park plant to potentially dangerous beryllium for years without their knowledge and later opposed requests to monitor health impacts.

The company has consistently minimized the extent of the exposure and the seriousness of the problem.

But two dozen former Rocketdyne employees - representing a larger group of workers that handled an alloy containing a low percentage of beryllium - have now come forward and told the Daily News they were given little safety training or equipment and denied basic tests when health questions arose.

The Daily News began looking into the use of beryllium after a June 11 federal register listed one of Rocketdyne's predecessor companies, Atomics International, as a beryllium user. A series of articles since then has documented that use of the metal was far more extensive than the company initially acknowledged.

The former employees said they worked in a machine shop for years, grinding, sanding and deburring parts made out of an aluminum alloy that contained from 1 percent to 3 percent beryllium, a metal used in rocket and nuclear programs that can cause lung disease if the dust is inhaled.

Some said they ate lunch in the machine shop in Building 37 at 6633 Canoga Ave. and took chips and dust home in their work clothes, potentially introducing it into their homes and the community.

``They are exposed,'' said Dr. Tom Hales, a senior medical epidemiologist with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, who visited the Canoga Park plant in 1987. While he said the team found no overexposures based on regulatory standards, it concluded that an epidemiological study of the workers was warranted.

Dr. Lee S. Newman, an expert on beryllium disease at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, in 1993 evaluated one former Rocketdyne worker and last week reviewed federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration surface and air samples taken in 1987.

Based on that, he said the workers' exposures to the small amounts of beryllium dust was enough to potentially endanger their health. ``They are at risk of beryllium sensitivity and beryllium disease, it's as simple as that.''

Statistically, Newman said, between one and three of the 60 people identified by the Daily News as working in Building 37 would be expected to develop the disease or sensitivity to it.

For that reason, he said, it's critical the workers be placed in a beryllium screening program where they would get a routine blood test for sensitivity to the metal.

``This is a plant where beryllium medical surveillance should occur,'' Newman said, noting the published scientific literature is clear that some workers exposed to alloys containing comparable amounts of beryllium to those worked on at Rocketdyne have come down with the disease.

Officials with Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell International purchased by The Boeing Co. in 1996, last week denied the machine shop employees are at risk and said they aren't classified as beryllium workers under the company's current screening program.

``We don't think it was a hazard today, let alone then,'' said Steve Lafflam, director of safety, health and environmental affairs since 1985. ``We don't have any data on all of our monitoring through that shop that indicates we exceeded any permissible exposure levels.''

Lafflam said, in general, only workers who handled the metal in much higher concentrations - primarily those who worked in a tightly controlled beryllium shop where workers were trained and monitored - are considered among the company's approximately 80 former beryllium workers.

While company officials said they will consider case-by-case requests for beryllium screening from former or current workers, they made it clear not everyone will be eligible. ``Do we test a secretary who walked through the shop to the vending machine?'' Lafflam asked.

Nearly went undetected

Workers said that it wasn't until 1987 that the company improved safety procedures. The actions were taken after workers said they discovered a manufacturer's label on a piece of the alloy warning beryllium dust or fumes could cause potentially fatal lung disease or cancer, company documents and numerous interviews reveal.

Lafflam acknowledged some labels were ``missing'' but said Rocketdyne had no regulatory obligation to label the materials. After concerns were raised, both labeling and training were improved, he said.

In recent questioning, the company has downplayed the matter. At first, company officials said the work with the metal was minimal and confined to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the Simi Hills. When confronted with evidence of an operational beryllium shop in Canoga Park, the company acknowledged its existence but said only a handful of employees worked there at a time.

About half of the 60 people identified as working in the machine shop have come forward with health concerns. They said they have known about their potential beryllium exposure risks for years but either have been unable to win medical surveillance from the company or have felt any challenge would be futile.

Now, with the Department of Energy offering support to employees of companies that performed DOE work involving beryllium, former nuclear and other non-DOE workers are seeking screening, compensation and medical care.

They said Deborah Lapham, a former tool crib attendant, and a couple of other workers in 1987 found the alloy's warning label that Alcoa routinely attached to the company's product but that none of the former workers said they had ever seen before.

``We felt like we were being raped when we saw the stickers the company didn't want us to see,'' said Walter McCarron, a Woodland Hills resident and former industrial electronics electrician. He serviced machines used to cut, grind and sand beryllium and the aluminum alloy containing beryllium and as shop steward took machinists' concerns to the company. McCarron received beryllium training in 1986 company records show, though officials say now they don't consider him a beryllium worker, either.

Lapham, who lives in Northern California, said she lost her job after finding and distributing copies of the 6-by-8-inch labels. They said in part: ``WARNING Beryllium dust or fumes are harmful if inhaled and may cause delayed lung injury which can be debilitating or possibly fatal. Breathing excessive dust or fumes may cause cancer. Chronic inhalation of Beryllium has produced lung tumors in animal tests.''

``It was definitely there, and it was definitely hidden, and people were working on it without anything to take the fumes away,'' Lapham said.

After she and others took the label to the union, Lapham claims she was harassed and finally driven out.

``At that time, I had no fear. Now I do,'' said Lapham, who hasn't been tested for beryllium sensitivity, but who says she has a persistent cough.

In 1987, OSHA confirmed labels were missing from the aluminum castings and some employees had not been trained properly, according to a March 4, 1991, memo signed by C.J. Rozas, Rocketdyne's former director of health, safety and environment. Rozas said the problems were corrected.

Alcoa, in a November 1987 letter to McCarron, the former shop steward, said the labels were carefully drawn up to fully disclose the health risks, as well as to describe the personal, health and environmental safeguards that needed to be followed.

Those precautions, ``should be observed by everyone who works with these products,'' the letter from Alcoa's then manager of product safety, Raymond W. Sauer, said. Sauer could not be reached. But the former Rocketdyne workers said they worked for years without knowledge of those warnings.

Lafflam said all high-concentration beryllium was labeled in the beryllium shop, but there was no regulatory requirement Rocketdyne label the aluminum alloys containing low levels of beryllium. He said there was nothing to suggest the labels were missing, because someone intentionally removed them.

The workers said they felt they were misled. ``There was no informed consent in the workplace,'' McCarron said.

Beryllium sampling

A spot sampling by OSHA of air and surfaces in late 1987 did not show levels high enough to create a health hazard, Rozas wrote in the memo, a response to a grievance filed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 9927.

Newman, the pulmonologist, said the fact beryllium was measured at all was cause for concern. ``They (the samples) tell me the processes they performed in that area produced detectable airborne beryllium at levels at which we've seen beryllium disease occur.''

Hales, the NIOSH senior medical epidemiologist, added that because small amounts of beryllium were detected, ``those people should be screened.''

The OSHA citations issued between mid-November and December 1987 included several for not disclosing to workers they were working on alloys that contained beryllium. The company was never fined.

Typical was one issued in Building 37: ``Alcoa aluminum castings for pylon B-1 bomber and MX missiles was not labeled indicating the percentages of beryllium which it contained which was from 0.04% to 0.3%. The bulk samples indicated 0.04% and 0.2% on or about Nov. 10, 1987.''

Another citation involved employees grinding and sanding beryllium-containing parts and handling chemicals known to cause respiratory problems without proper instruction. ``No training was done,'' the federal investigators concluded.

Beryllium is a light metal, which is mixed into other metals to give them strength, flexibility and other special traits that Rocketdyne used in its nuclear reactor research program at Santa Susana Field Laboratory, for rocket engines and solid fuel, and for many others parts, according to employees and documents.

Beryllium dust has been known for decades to cause beryllium disease, a potentially fatal lung disease - something Rocketdyne said it was aware of and took precautions against.

Recently, scientists faced with scores of beryllium cases at defense plants across the country found evidence that workers exposed for long periods to alloys containing small amounts of beryllium appear to be at risk of getting the disease.

Dr. Ron Balkissoon, a pulmonologist at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, has found several workers who developed evidence of ``full-blown beryllium disease'' after being exposed to copper alloys that contained less than 2 percent beryllium. The unprotected Rocketdyne machinists were working on alloy containing up to 3 percent beryllium.

``Our current feeling is that we don't know of any truly safe level (of beryllium), or any safe beryllium alloy below which one can be assured they won't develop beryllium sensitivity and-or beryllium disease.''

``If there's been extended exposure even to lower alloy components, there is the theoretical risk they've had enough exposure for their immune systems to begin reacting to it,'' he said.

Screening for beryllium sensitivity through a blood test is critical to identify which workers need further medical monitoring, Balkissoon said. The body's immune system reacts to beryllium, which the test detects - a possible indicator the person may have, or may someday develop the disease.

``The value of screening is that you identify them in a surveillance program to be followed every two or so years to see if there is any deterioration in the lungs,'' Balkissoon said. Steroid treatments can slow the disease's progression.

Newman, the doctor who evaluated McCarron on Dec. 9, 1993, recommended he be placed in medical monitoring. Newman said that while McCarron showed no signs of beryllium disease he should be medically monitored because of the eight years he worked around beryllium dust.

``As a beryllium-exposed individual, it would be ... prudent for him to be part of ongoing beryllium screening programs,'' Newman said.

``In his case, it would be reasonable for him to have a repeat blood beryllium lymphocyte transformation test and chest X-ray on the order of every two (to) three years to monitor for evidence of development and sensitization.''

Van Nuys workers' compensation Judge Linda J. Morgan agreed, and on April 13, 1995, ordered Rocketdyne's parent to provide McCarron with continuing medical treatment.

The judge also heard from other former employees who testified that safeguards were lax, even in the shop where workers machined almost pure beryllium metal. Company officials dispute that, saying those workers were always rigorously trained and medically monitored.

One machine maintenance worker testified that in 1985 he was given only a mask to enter the beryllium shop, where beryllium powder was visible. The company issued a respirator - but no filters for it - in 1989. The filters came a year later, he said.

Another said he unknowingly welded on wire made out of the alloy, known as ``tens 50,'' seven to eight times before realizing it contained beryllium.

Rocketdyne challenged the use of Newman's report. A state appeals board found the report unconvincing since it did not substantiate that McCarron had sustained an industrial injury.

Lafflam said the company denied McCarron's claim because he did not have a disease - not because they were fighting medical screening.

McCarron, now 57, sees it differently. ``All I wanted was periodic screening for beryllium disease every two or three years.''

Workers' concerns

Scott Promen, 44, of Tarzana said as a security guard and firefighter for Rocketdyne he used to sleep in a room adjoining the beryllium shop, which he claimed was not tightly sealed or always protected with dust- catching devices.

Promen said his lungs are failing and he wheezes frequently. ``I didn't know there was anything dangerous. This stuff about special precautions they took, they didn't. They said, it's safe, go ahead, it's fine. I'm an unfortunate person that got screwed by Rocketdyne.''

Promen said he tried to get the company to test him.

``They said, we're not paying for that,'' Promen said.

Lafflam said the room was sealed, and therefore workers on the outside were protected.

Girard Gilkison, 64 of Simi Valley said when he and other maintenance men went into the beryllium shop to repair machinery, they had to beg just for rubber gloves. ``I said, that's a dangerous room. They said, it's only beryllium. I knew it was poisonous. I tried to tell them about beryllium. They said, keep your mouth shut and do your job.''

Several former employees said it took years for the company to install air locks, ventilation systems and changing rooms to seal off the beryllium room. James S. Allen Jr. of Oracle, Ariz., a former beryllium room machine inspector, said he felt safe in the room because it was well ventilated and machines were flooded to keep dust from kicking up.

``Maybe early on there weren't safeguards in the beryllium room,'' said Allen, now 71.

Paul Entz, 67 of Roseville said he has no health effects but some of his co-workers in the shop were seriously afflicted.

Entz, who worked for the company from 1953 until 1991 and who was on the safety team at one point, rated the company's overall response to the problem as good. When several people got sick, the company began to provide training, protective gear and require medical tests.

``Once they became aware of the situation it was pretty well controlled.''

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Photo:

Woodland Hills resident Walter McCarron, a former industrial electronics technician, holds an aluminum-alloys warning that worries ex-employees of Rocketdyne's Canoga Park plant.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer