On the legal side of things, there is some bad news. Builders learned that Chinese drywall manufacturer Knauf does not have insurance.

“I have a letter back from that one company – and there are other manufacturers – that says they didn’t have insurance. That doesn’t mean we won’t find somebody else responsible that did,” said Geoff Gentile of the Boyle and Gentile Law Firm.

Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin is part of Knauf, a German multinational supplier of building materials with a worldwide presence in 58 countries. No insurance? Right. And I’m posting this blog entry from Mars where I’m sitting with Manny Ramirez passing one back and forth, wondering where we’re gonna find some water and a better contract than the LA Dodgers waved in his face.

One of these days this is going to become a real story on this side of the Pacific. No insurance. That ought to do it. Nahhh. Still no dead pets or small kids with kidney stones.

Though there will, no doubt, be many questions asked concerning the US drywall, currently the speculation is that these companies may have bought Chinese drywall and relabeled it as their own. Both USG and National Gypsum deny that this happened. According to the article in the NLJ

George Brincku got confirmation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that drywall was causing the problems in his home. He sent a drywall sample, a corroded brass corner from a jewelry box, a penny which had been placed in a wall for several days and other objects to Thomas W. Eagar, an MIT metallurgy professor.

The conclusion wasn’t pretty. Eagar found evidence that gases created an acidic condition. The analysis of the Brinckus’ wallboard indicated a composition of half gypsum and half cellulose. An exemplar wallboard should be 100 percent gypsum.

Curiously, back in early January when I started blogging on this story, Adam Minter from Shanghai Scrap left the following comment:

I’m aware that in some parts of south China the environmental authorities have signed off on the use of plastic e-waste as a constituent in drywall. Now, there’s no reason to believe – prima facie – that there’s anything hazardous about plastic e-waste (basically, fiberglass), but one wonders about how the waste is transformed in the drywall manufacturing process. In any event, I’m guessing that the drywall plant isn’t ISO 9000.

It continues …
________

For the trail on this story, go here.

Drywall produced by Knauf Tianjin Plasterboard Co. Ltd. — one of the problematic manufacturers identified so far — made it to the inland town of Sebring, about 90 miles east of Sarasota in Highlands County, the Herald-Tribune has confirmed. Meanwhile, a national consumer advocacy group is claiming that the scope is much broader. The Washington, D.C.-based America’s Watchdog, which is partnering with high-powered attorneys across the country, says that its own investigation has found defective Chinese drywall in Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, Virginia and Texas.

“We think this could literally turn out to be the worst case of sick houses in U.S. history,” said Thomas Martin, the organization’s president.

The Herald-Tribune reported on Feb. 1 that shipping records show at least 550 million pounds of Chinese drywall has been offloaded at U.S. ports since 2006 — enough to build 60,000 average-size homes.

On another sour note, the Palm Beach Post is reporting that two federal agencies are being asked to look into the problem: Senator seeks Chinese drywall probe

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is asking the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to investigate whether Chinese-manufactured drywall is toxic.

The wheels on this bus just keep going round-er and round-er. Bigger and faster too. The estimates of the volume of imported Chinese drywall is also on the increase too, up from estimated 36,000 homes, as I posted 11 days ago, to 60,000 homes.

There are now 20 builders who have been fingered for using it, at least one of whom has already filed Chapter 11:

WCI believes that drywall manufactured in China may have been installed in certain portions of some homes that were built and sold prior to our Chapter 11 filing,” said Connie Boyd, WCI’s customer communication director. “We are aware of and have reviewed reports alleging that some of these drywall products may emit an odor and are associated with certain other issues.

How much possible defective drywall are we talking about? Actually, enough to build 36,000 homes:

The Florida health department’s list of complaints has grown to 75 homes, spread across 12 counties. Manatee topped the list with 23. Sarasota has nine; Charlotte one. The list could grow considerably. A Herald-Tribune analysis of shipping records found that the Chinese-made drywall imported into Florida since 2006 was enough to build 36,000 homes.

I get the feeling that if this were more melamine and dead pets, we’d be hearing a lot more about it than we are.
________
Other Links:
Is Chinese Drywall the New Mold?

Grammaticus and, one imagines, his cameraman – “We have hitched a ride on a rescue boat” – are on a small-motorized and overloaded rescue boat that is riding precariously low in the filthy flooding waters. He dramatically tells the camera and, by proxy, us, the viewers, that the boat is one of only “about three” rescue crafts working this area doing their best to save the lives of those who are already in the water. While hand-flailing Grammaticus urgently reports on a flooded village that they have just left, we can easily see that the boat he is in is packed with the newly rescued, three rescuers in life jackets and the two Beebs. He tells us in his charged tone that there are hundreds more still in the water, as he brings his hands, palms down, to pecs level, indicating that at least some of those desperate hundreds are in floodwaters up to their chests.

With the exception of a couple of quick pans around the small boat to show us those who minutes ago were in the drink, the camera stays on Grammaticus who tells us, without the least bit of reflection on the absurdity of his occupation of a much-needed seat on the rescue boat, just how desperate this flood situation is. “There aren’t enough craft … not enough boats to carry them all.” Curious bit of disconnected candor, not altogether different than a junkie with a spike in his arm complaining, “There’s no dope on the streets!”

Grammaticus rolls on: “When we got to Koshula (sic? I have no idea how to spell it, and since the BBC is so poor at correctly pronouncing foreign words – which is curious since in the not-so-distant past they believed that the whole world was theirs – I’m flying bind without a map to tell me how it’s actually spelled or pronounced), what we found was a crowd of people, maybe a couple of hundred strong, standing in the water, quite deep, deeesperate to get out. They were fiiighting to get on the dinghy. Our boat was almost swamped. There were people shoving their children in, fighting to get on board, throwing their bags on, and the rescuers here had to literally fend them off to prevent the boats from sinking. There may be a thousand or so people in there who need to get out and not enough boats to carry them all.”

I wonder what tone Grammaticus would have taken had he been a father chest-deep in the muddied toxic swirl with a child on his shoulders, when one of the too few rescue boats with two foreign newsmen appeared. I can imagine myself as a father holding my child as the floodwaters rise around me. Who gets the seat? When does the story become more important than the “deeesperate” lives that are in the process of being lost? Come hell or high water, my kid’s on the boat, not the Beebs whose only business in the boat is the business of news. They’d be blubbering and sputtering the dirty, chest-deep water right next to me, waiting for the next boat, or maybe the one after.