Suit Says LANL Working Conditions Unsafe
by Adam Rankin, August 25, 2004

Even before Stanley J. Yost was taken to a Los Alamos medical clinic, coughing up blood, Marc A. Pearson knew their working conditions in 2002 were unsafe, according to a lawsuit filed against a Los Alamos National Laboratory subcontractor and the University of California, which runs the lab.

Pearson and Lindsay Yost, Yost's daughter, filed the suit last week alleging Johnson Controls of northern New Mexico and UC created unsafe working conditions and that despite concerns of various supervisors and workers, allowed work to continue.

According to the lawsuit, Yost killed himself because he "was so depressed and despondent over his injuries and inability to weld that he suffered extreme depression, delirium or insanity."

The lawsuit seeks damages for the health effects and emotional distress suffered by Yost and Pearson.

Neither UC nor Johnson Controls officials immediately returned phone calls seeking comment.

Yost and Pearson were working to refurbish two pumphouses at LANL's Technical Area-55, welding braces to the existing structures to make them more sturdy.

The lawsuit says the braces were coated with an epoxy resin that when ignited by the welding equipment released cyanide gas, which the workers inhaled.

Pearson and other workers, including some supervisors, expressed concerns over the possible effects of the epoxy fumes early in the construction process, the suit says. But the lawsuit alleges Johnson Controls was under pressure from UC to finish the work quickly and so did not follow proper safety procedures and provide the workers with respirators.

Work only stopped after Yost fell ill and was treated at the Los Alamos Medical Center , according to the lawsuit. Yost was treated for a bloody nose and was coughing blood and had trouble breathing as well as kidney and bladder problems, according to the complaint. The suit alleges Pearson had similar breathing difficulties.

A supervisor then took a group of workers to a LANL medical clinic where a physician there "advised (the supervisor) and the workers that such epoxy turns to cyanide gas when ignited," according to the lawsuit.

Work was halted and, according to the complaint, the manager said all the epoxy was going to be stripped before work resumed, though it never was. The welding was eventually completed by a welder who was provided with a respirator, according to the suit.

Originally published in the Albuquerque Journal.

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