A question about asbestos and building demolitions

[Dover]

What are the laws (if any) about demolishing buildings known to be riddled with asbestos? Doesn't that send it airborn in the huge clouds of debris and smoke when it comes down?
I wonder for several reasons. First of all the public health issue and second of all as an investigative angle on the demolishing of the Twin Towers (were there pending issues/lawsuits regarding asbestos that might have factored into the reasons for targeting them for 'demolition'?).

I watched a 30 story office building in Fort Worth get demolished on the T.V. news the other day and the reporter very openly said that one of the reasons it was being taken down was due to it's asbestos problems. What?!!!


March 20, 2006

NEW YORK (AP) _ A 41-year-old paramedic who worked at a morgue for months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center was buried Monday after dying of an asbestos-related cancer.

..snip..

A pending lawsuit alleges more that 20 deaths have been linked to ground zero exposure.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--paramedicdeath0320mar20,0,4937248,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[unblock]

1. it must be removed prior to demolition

just google "demolition asbestos", plenty of links.

[DemonFighterLives]

2. For some reason, they seem to ignore the asbestos when demolition

is chosen. Not in all cases, but in many. The EPA lied to New Yorkers about the contaminated air. Somewhere in the 911 conspiracy stories is the story of WTC towers needing asbestos abatement which would have cost millions. GFY cheney is of course the King of Asbestos. He would dispose of it in your sugar on your cereal if he could.

I worked in Lead Abatement, but the company that I worked with had Asbestos Abatement people too, so I got a little education. The sad fact about asbestos is that the particles that can kill you are too small to be seen by the human eye and will travel through a paper dust mask. It could dig itself into your lungs 20 years after exposure.
Nasty stuff- pooh-poohed by many.

[DemonFighterLives]

3. I was trying to find the story on the rescue dogs from 911

There is some at this site.
http://landofpuregold.com/thetruth.htm

[dailykoff]

10. King of Asbestos is right

He'd put it in your sugar and then he'd burn you alive so you couldn't sue Halliburton.

[sendero]

4. If you demolish...

... a building using expolsives, you are definitely sending up a cloud of asbestos particles if there is asbestos in the building.

[BlackHeart]

6. What would be the damage

from a one-time exposure to asbestos like this. Isn't it from constant exposure over years that is bad?

[Lisa]

8. I guess we're going to find out ...

...about the acute vs. chronic toxicity of those particular compounds.

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/poisonou.html

I asked the epidemiology guy down the hall from me, about this. We don't have a lot of data on cancers which tend to take decades to develop (the recent deaths of WTC responders are on the "early" side of the curve ... the peak would occur at about 20 years after, he suggests). It somewhat depends on how much is inhaled. Also, for people who were working at the WTC site, or living downwind from it, the exposure wasn't just in the few minutes after the buildings collapsed and the particles went billowing into the atmosphere. The finer ones were hovering in the air, so those who were breathing it in days or weeks after (walking around near the site, or cleaning workplaces/apartments nearby) would have been exposed to it for all that time. (The EPA may have made things worse, by sending out vacuum trucks with the wrong filters, so some more particles were actually puffed into the air.)

Asbestos IS known to have a cancer risk with even a one-time exposure. (They're still trying to figure out what the threshold for that would be.)

http://www.ehso.com/Asbestos/mesothelioma.php
http://www.casact.org/admissions/futfell/dec05/issues.htm

Although the risks for casual passersby have been downplayed (not much risk from once-off exposures), I found it interesting that there have been at least 2 definite mesothelioma fatalities in those working at the site, in only a few years after the event. (This is the otherwise-rare cancer linked with the "short" asbestos fibres, the type which would have been released.)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9804E2DB123EF935A15757C0A9649C8B63

[DemonFighterLives]

9. I think it is more of a "luck of the draw" type thing

One person can work around it all the time and never suffer, while another person just needs one particle,too small to detect, to cause all the problems. And it could happen 20 years down the road.
My Uncle used to mix asbestos in with plaster as a kid and the dust would fly. He has never suffered from it and is now in his mid eighties.
There are now what they call second tier cases, like a wife washing her husbands contaminated clothing.

I would not trust the new method being tested in Houston listed in this thread. Asbestos can be wetted for removal, but when it dries out it is as dangerous as ever. It needs to be bagged in duct tape and plastic and disposed of in a lined landfill. Encapsulants can lock it in for a certain length of time.

[Dover]

5. Re: The EPA response in Fort Worth from 2005

Background and Goals of the "Fort Worth Method"
PROJECT UPDATE:
December 8, 2005

EPA Releases Plan to Test Alternative Method to Remove Asbestos

EPA is submitting a draft Quality Assurance Project Plan for external review for the Alternative Asbestos Control Method demonstration project. An alternative method for removing asbestos from older buildings during demolition will be evaluated and compared to removal techniques previously authorized by National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP). If successful, the newer method could allow the safe demolition of many abandoned buildings around the nation that present serious risks to nearby residents. Using the Alternative Asbestos Control Method, these former contaminated areas would then be available for redevelopment, creating jobs and tax revenues for communities.

The EPA announced in July 2004 that before determining whether to allow Fort Worth’s proposal for an alternative method to proceed, it would use a location other than Fort Worth to test an alternative method for asbestos removal. The newer EPA method will be tested in spring 2006 at a remote location at Fort Chaffee, Ark., chosen to assure no public exposure. Buildings on the east side have a clearance of approximately 1,000 feet from the nearest occupied site, and far greater in all other directions. The demonstration will include extensive environmental monitoring, that allows for a representative of the city, state health department, or EPA to stop work if conditions so merit.

The Alternative Asbestos Control Method first removes the most friable (easily crushed to a powder) asbestos-containing materials before demolition, but leaves some asbestos containing materials (primarily wall systems) in place. Then the demolition proceeds using water containing agents similar to detergents to increase the water's ability to penetrate dust layers and surfaces, trap asbestos fibers and minimize their potential release to air.

The project is a joint effort of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, the U.S. Department of Energy, and EPA. Public involvement is an important component for project success, and there will be opportunities for stakeholder input throughout the work...cont'd

http://www.fortworthgov.org/dem/project_xl.htm


A little history on the Fort Worth building:

..snip..
The building has been vacant since about 1990 and several plans were proposed to convert the building into residential. The owners stripped the building of all salvageable materials and even took the elevators to the top floor and then cut the cables. The building was hit hard by the 2000 tornado and the city ordered the clock to be removed because of unsafe conditions. The owner fell into bankruptcy and the building was auctioned off on the Courthouse steps. XTO Energy purchased the building in early 2004. XTO was not able to find a way to economically restore the building due to excessive amounts of asbestos, lack of structural integrity due to the changes in design, upgrading to current building codes, inefficient floor plate, damage created by the 2000 tornado, and damage created by the previous building owners. Demolition permits were quietly filed in October, and around Thansgiving visible signs of demolition were seen. Now demolition is in full steam with the base being cleared out. The building will be imploded.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=98261



More on the Fort Worth Demolition:

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/13819771.htm


And here's something interesting though not quite related:

ICC terrorism related proposals controversial

The International Code Council has withheld its support for controversial proposals for changes to the ICC's model building code, which were pushed by the ICC's Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism Resistant Buildings. The proposals were in response to recommendations in a $16 million report on the World Trade Center destruction from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

http://enr.ecnext.com/free-scripts/comsite2.pl?page=enr_document&article=20060320c

[Ian David]

7. I just hired a company to test my home

While I was away on vacation, my pipes broke and my house flooded.

It turns out that the plaster used in my ceiling might have asbestos in it.

However, the demolition/clean-up company (as far as I know) never tested the ceiling for asbestos before their crew of twenty year-old kids tore down the plaster with their bare hands and no respiratory protection.

So now I'm waiting to find out if those kids-- and my house-- have been contaminated with asbestos dust because of that.

[dailykoff]

11. Kick for the tail that wagged the dog

Weasling out of massive asbestos liability is what 9/11 was all about. The rest was gravy.