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Louisville, KY
Posts: 2
Joined: Feb, 2010
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 Thread Start First Page
[#1] Posted: 02/15/2010 - 7:19:04 PM |  |  |
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The maker of almost 2/3 of America’s new water pipes, JM Eagle, has been using substandard Formosan materials and fudging standard certification tests since 1996, according to a “whistleblower” lawsuit unsealed in California this week (2/08/2010, reported in tnyt.com and plasticsnews.com 2/11, 12).
As a result, more than half of JM Eagle’s PVC pipes made from 1997 through 2006 had tensile strengths lower than the minimum standards, the suit charged.
You never know how these things will play out in the courts (Federal Pacific was still in the courts over 25 years after it stopping making electric panels and breakers).
But it looks like there’s serious meat on these bones.
States including Delaware, Nevada, Tennessee, and Virginia, and more than 40 water districts or authorities in California have decided to join in the lawsuit. Nevada, for example, says it recently spent $5 million replacing a 3/4-mile water pipe supplied by JM Eagle that was rupturing several times a year.
JM Eagle is the largest manufacturer of PVC pipe in the U.S. and the world. It also is the largest of the world’s plastic and PVC manufacturers. It claims about 60% of the nation’s market for new water pipes.
It makes PVC pipes for municipalities, industry, and water companies, sewers and homes, irrigation pipes, PVC electrical conduit, PVC well casings and drop pipe, polyethylene black and yellow gas distribution lines, HDPE grey slip lining pipe for rehab applications, and more.
Though the whistleblower suit, by its nature, has government and municipal/institutional pipes (prisons, sewers, etc.) as its subject, most of the facts (substandard resin for raw material, materials and manufacturing techniques changed without required notices to certifying bodies, fudged tests and/or samples, etc.) would seem to reach all PVC, including residential. Whether the tensile strength issues raise equivalent concerns for either pipe buried running to a home or inside is not touched on in the lawsuit. In other words, it sounds like the proverbial tip of an iceberg.
Couldn't upload the file with a copy of the 72-page complaint (TIJ errors pointed to file extension -- .pdf -- and file size 3760 KB) but will send it or post it if I can.
Any thoughts or news?
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Kenmore, WA
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Joined: Dec, 2003
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PVC Pipes J.M.Eagle Whistleblower
[#2] Posted: 02/15/2010 - 8:23:24 PM | | |
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Just post a link to the complaint and folks can go there and upload it or read it at their leisure.
ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!
Mike
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State: PA & NJ
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Seattle, WA
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PVC Pipes J.M.Eagle Whistleblower
[#4] Posted: 02/15/2010 - 10:03:48 PM | | |
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There's a fuller article here at http://plasticsnews.com/headli...id=17829 , and that has a direct link to the lawsuit document. I admit it smells but, as nothing has been proven yet, I'm going to reserve judgement. All I do know for sure is that, as usual, some lawyers are going to make a lot of money...no matter how it turns out.
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Richard Moore
Rest Assured Inspection Services
Seattle, WA
http://www.rainspect.com
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Kenmore, WA
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PVC Pipes J.M.Eagle Whistleblower
[#5] Posted: 02/15/2010 - 10:13:21 PM | | |
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California fought plastic pipe for years. They'll jump at any chance to condemn it.
OT - OF!!!
M.
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Louisville, KY
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PVC Pipes J.M.Eagle Whistleblower
[#6] Posted: 02/16/2010 - 06:29:13 AM | | |
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How testing certifications allegedly were obtained fraudulently from UL, ASTM, and AWWA is detailed in the Complaint. (It's an amazing story of failed test runs, ditched samples, changed protocols, etc.) Since these generally are "honor system" protocols, the Complaint should be read before concluding anything further. Home inspectors are still dealing with the fallout of UL stickers that were on Federal Pacific Electric panels for analogous reasons. There is no "lack lack of reported failures" among the state and local governments that joined the "whistleblower" claims (note the Nevada prison pipe in the post, others are in the related articles at The New York Times (nyt.com) and Plastics News (plasticsnews.com), though the list a week after the Complaint was unsealed is unlikely to be complete so soon. The 72-page complaint is at http://admin.phillipsandcohen....fice.com under "Qui Tam" (whistleblower actions, at left, along with a little info on the background of that kind of lawsuit).
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louisville, ne
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PVC Pipes J.M.Eagle Whistleblower
[#7] Posted: 02/16/2010 - 8:27:50 PM | | |
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Back when I was still teaching plumbing for my continuing ed hours I used to take my classes on lots of field trips to show them how things were made and used every day in the trades,rather than just looking at pictures in a book 3 hrs a night.Anyway cres line plastics in c.b iowa was one of the places they liked to go,very interesting process involved in making pvc and sdr pipe I efinately reccomend a tour if you ever get the chance 
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