More Companies Knew About Tainted Drywall but Stayed Quiet—and Kept Selling It

[Ed Barrow]

Source: ProPublica/Sarasota Herald Tribune

At least a half-dozen homebuilders, installers and environmental consultants knew as early as 2006 that foul smells were coming from drywall imported from China – but they didn’t share their early concerns with the public, even when homeowners began complaining about the drywall in 2008.

ProPublica and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported last month that two U.S. companies – WCI Communities, a major Florida homebuilder, and Banner Supply, a Miami-based distributor – knew about the problem in 2006. But according to recently released sworn depositions by current and former executives at Banner, other companies also were aware of the problem.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has since linked the foul odor to sulfur gases that can corrode electrical wiring and household appliances, including air conditioners and refrigerators. The long-term health effects of the air are still being studied, although homeowners have complained of respiratory problems, bloody noses and severe headaches.

As WCI was ripping the smelly drywall out of homes on Florida’s east coast, the company was selling houses built with the same material on the west coast. Several homeowners in the Sun City Center and the Venetian Golf and River Club in North Venice told ProPublica and the Herald-Tribune that they bought homes from WCI as late as March 2007 — eight months after the builder had found problems with Chinese drywall — but received no warning.


Read more: http://www.propublica.org/feature/chinese-drywall-stinks-mums-the-word

[joeybee12]

1. Put them out of business...n/t

[fascisthunter]

2. Global Free Rip-Off

[Grinchie]

3. Oh the Irony.. Gypsum is sourced primarily from Fly Ash from Coal Burning Power Plants..

The Ash is processed to remove pollutants, and if the process is faulty, it can leave high amounts of Sulfur in the resultant Fly Ash.

Now think back a few years, and look up the TVA Fly Ash Containment pond disaster... The real question is that we produce more than enough Fly Ash which can me made into Gypsum than we can handle.. So why did we need to Manufacture it in China, Load it onto boats, Sail it across the Pacific, Unload it, Transport it to distribution Centers, and finally install it in Homes when it could be manufactured locally for a fraction of the cost?

Wake up sheeple. This is the fraud of Globalism, and the reason why we are headed for ecological collapse.

[jmowreader]

5. Because it couldn't be manufactured locally, that's why

In my Journal is a very long post about Chinese drywall. That shit (shit is the correct term for it) was brought in during the twin disasters of Katrina and the Building Boom because there wasn't enough US-made drywall to go around. When every drywall plant in the US is running three shifts seven days a week and there's still not enough board to meet demand, they've got to get it from somewhere.

Now, what I have NOT figured out is, the product apparently smells like rotten eggs when it's just sitting there. One would think the people who bought the product would have rejected the first batch after they got a whiff of it, but that didn't happen.

[Jamastiene]

6. Could it have been stored in an area with other smells?

Like in a Lowe's store or something like that? I know the smells in that store intermingle and you can't really smell individual items until you separate them in another location for a while.

[jmowreader]

9. This shit apparently REALLY stank

When you open the container it's in, you'd smell it. Plus, the stuff was sold through traditional lumberyards and drywall jobbers rather than Home Depots or Lowe's. If you're a big-enough contractor you'll never see the product until it gets to the jobsite: you call your jobber, tell him to deliver 340 sheets of drywall to 1313 Mockingbird Lane, and be at the jobsite when your delivery is supposed to happen. The jobber shows up with a "boom truck" and puts the board in the house for you. One would think when they got the first shipment and saw how bad it stank they'd be all "don't send me this anymore, send me a different brand of rock" and it would have happened...but obviously it did not.

Also, drywall doesn't tend to absorb really bad odors like a lot of things do.

[Grinchie]

7. You mean like Goodyear was making all their tires in America as well?

And then the Goodyear Stock crashed the day after the US slapped tariffs on imported Chinese tires?

Yeah, running three shift, 7 days a week.. Lol. I guess that didn't apply in California, where a handyman of ours mentioned that they shut down the plant that he worked at years ago..

The fact is that we have outsourced manufacturing to other countries.. It's paid for with the souls of evry person that is exploited by unsustainable business practices.

Most people are too busy to pay attention to all the individula pieces of the puzzle to put it together.

[UpInArms]

8. I guess they still have all those furniture factories running 3 shifts

near you, too?

Last I heard, most of our furniture was coming in by boat, also.

:shrug:

[jmowreader]

10. "Near me" is now in Idaho, not North Carolina

And seriously, nothing up here is running three shifts per day. The Cowles' newspaper plant in Spokane and Hagadone's newspaper plant in Coeur d'Alene are about as close to it as it gets, but neither place runs three full shifts every day--and neither one employs a huge number of people. (Hospitals do not count in this discussion because they HAVE to run 24/7.)

[UpInArms]

11. thanks for the reply - that's the thing -

no 3 shifts per day anywhere around here either

- maybe someday someone will get the brilliant idea that making things here is a good thing.

[Demeter]

14. Gypsum Was Mined in Michigan

Don't know if it still is.

[RedCloud]

4. Don't you just love no regulations?

[MadMaddie]

12. Ahhhh the smell of "Free Market" poisening Americans!

Bastards, they should be put in jail. Doesn't this count as Fraud?

[conspirator]

13. In our Free Trade Corporate Society if you care about people instead of profit you are a looser n/t