Sand Point, also known as Qagun Tayagungin, is a city in Aleutians East Borough, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 952. It is located on northwestern Popof Island, off the Alaska Peninsula. It is in the Aleutians East Borough of Alaska, and is near the entrance to the Bering Sea. The Aleutians East Borough School District is located in Southwestern Alaska along the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Chain The District was formed in 1988 from smaller districts who consolidated and formed a Borough with taxing authority. The Borough and District boundaries are the same, and stretch over approximately 15,000 square miles of road-less, mostly treeless tundra, from the middle of the Alaska Peninsula to the north and east, going southwest out to Akutan just east of Dutch Harbor. Sand Point was founded by a San Francisco fishing company in 1898 as a cod fishing station and trading post. Aleuts and Scandinavians were among the early residents. Gold mining was briefly a part of the economy during the early 1900s. Fishing remains an important industry, as Sand Point is home to one of the largest fishing fleets in the Aleutian Chain. Almost half the inhabitants are of Aleut descent - mainly from the Qagan Tayagungin tribe, and support themselves by fishing and fish processing. There is a cold storage and fish-processing plant called Trident and Peter Pan. There is an airport with a 4,000 foot paved runway and daily flights (weather permitting) to Anchorage, 575 airmiles to the northeast. The town is above the treeline, and there is a small herd of 120 bison (first introduced in the 1930s) which provides some meat for the island's inhabitants. It is notorious for the high winds caused by the meeting of cold air flows from the Bering Sea with the warm air over the Japan Current. It has a maritime climate, with temperature averages ranging from -9 to 76 °F (-23 to 24 °C), an average snowfall of 52 inches (130 cm) and an average rainfall of 33 inches (84 cm). The Russian Orthodox St. Nicholas Chapel was built in Sand Point in 1933.

What is toxic tort law?

Toxic Tort cases involve people who have been injured through exposure to dangerous pharmaceuticals or chemical substances in the environment, on the job, or in consumer products -- including carcinogenic agents, lead, benzene, silica, harmful solvents, hazardous waste, and pesticides to name a few.

Most toxic tort cases have arisen either from exposure to pharmaceutical drugs or occupational exposures. Most pharmaceutical toxic injury cases are mass tort cases, because drugs are consumed by thousands of people, many of whom become ill from a toxic drug. There have also been many occupational toxic tort cases, because industrial and other workers are often chronically exposed to toxic chemicals - more so than consumers and residents. Most of the law in this area arises from asbestos exposure, but thousands of toxic chemicals are used in industry and workers in these areas can experience a variety of toxic injuries. Unlike the general population, which is exposed to trace amounts of thousands of different chemicals in the environment, industrial workers are regularly exposed to much higher levels of chemicals and therefore have a greater risk of developing disease from particular chemical exposures than the general population. The home has recently become the subject of toxic tort litigation, mostly due to mold contamination, but also due to construction materials such as formaldehyde-treated wood and carpet. Toxic tort cases also arise when people are exposed to consumer products such as pesticides and suffer injury. Lastly, people can also be injured from environmental toxins in the air or in drinking water.

Answers to toxic tort law issues in Alaska

In certain kinds of cases, lawyers charge what is called a contingency fee. Instead of billing by the hour, the...

Because of the health problems caused by lead poisoning, the federal Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction...

Property owners may be liable for tenant health problems caused by exposure to environmental hazards, such as...

In general, mass tort cases involve a large number of individual claimants with claims associated with a single...

Federal court opinions concerning toxic tort law in Alaska