In 1971, I did my very first asbestos inspection and air sampling. I had lectured to my environmental geology class about asbestos hazards and one student who had just inherited a factory asked if the fibrous “stuff” falling from the ceiling might be a problem.
That the factory had asbestos wasn’t a surprise. For decades, asbestos was seen as a wonder material — cheap, readily available and, yes, safe. It the 1960s and 1970s, it ended up being used in more than 3,300 common products and was especially useful in construction, where it served as both a fireproofing insulator in high-rise buildings and as an acoustical barrier, especially in schools. The first third of the floors of the World Trade Center even had asbestos as an insulator, until . . .
Well, until we figured out the danger. As asbestos degrades and becomes microscopic particles, it can be inhaled and cause serious health problems, including lung cancer.
Because of the lag time between exposure and the onset of disease, it took governments a long time to realize the threat asbestos posed.
As a result of the continuing degrading of asbestos-containing materials into the 1980s and an increasingly activist environmental lobby, the federal government began to formulate regulations to control asbestos exposures. By 1987, these were regulations were formulated as the AHERA codes — Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, signed by president Reagan and put into effect by the EPA.
I note that at this time, there was still considerable skepticism, if not outright rejection, in some quarters for dealing with asbestos dangers. My wife was working as an assistant librarian in a middle school and she was directed to go into storage areas and bring out books that were heavily dusted with a material that had fallen from the ceiling — the material was asbestos-coating fireproofing! It took a community uprising to force the school board to replace the superintendent and accomplish necessary safe work practices.
In retrospect, it took a cadre of dedicated scientists and community leaders to push for protective rules; and it took longer to get them implemented. I have called this Stage 1 of the asbestos issue.
As time progressed, we moved from Stage 1 to Stage 2 — by now, we had a chance to sit back and consider changes and improvements to the initial battery of regulations.
As we moved into the next millennium, many of the folks who had been involved in Stages 1 and 2 had retired. Now, we began a Stage 3 — we have regulations, so let’s’ make the regulations “better.” Let’s eliminate asbestos and possible exposures “everywhere.”
This zero-tolerance policy may be well intentioned, but it can lead to expensive — and needless — panic.
In 2005, for example, an inspector found a trace of asbestos in a 40-year-old adhesive holding down a floor tile in Co-op City. The result: a $20 million abatement and reflooring. Co-op City residents are suing the city over the cost, saying that 86,000 air tests taken since that inspection have shown no asbestos. This might be because the work was done “properly,” or — what I think is more likely — any asbestos trapped inside of a floor tile is likely to stay glued there, and not released into the air.
But New York faces even worse possibilities because of this quest for “not one fiber” of asbestos.
There is a substance called vermiculite that is used as insulation. A mine in Montana historically provided most of the material used in the US, and there is also a deposit of asbestos in that mine.
Now, we don’t know how much vermiculite may actually be “tainted” with asbestos — or even how much asbestos could be present. But new regulations mean all materials with more than 10% vermiculite have to be treated as asbestos. No distinction is made, because it has been deemed better safe than sorry.
Here’s the problem: Vermiculite was enormously common as a building material in the early part of last century. Whole swaths of lower Manhattan have it. If building materials containing more than 10% vermiculite are to be disturbed — which theoretically can have a trace of asbestos — regulators could order up another multi-million-dollar overhaul.
This has gone beyond public safety into overkill.
Consider that asbestos is still mined today in Canada. Thousands of people live, eat, breathe . . . exist in the midst of the quarries. If the fallacious concept of “one fiber kills” were actually true, why isn’t everyone in this mining area long dead and buried?
I think a substantial part of the answer is that non-industrial exposure to the most common chemical variety of asbestos is much less of a danger than the public believes. However, in risk management, there is the well-accepted principle that while it is hard to convince people that something is actually dangerous, it is even more difficult once they are convinced to change their minds.
We have local, state and federal regulatory infrastructures in place to protect against any and all levels of asbestos. Each agency has a self-preservation goal that requires more and more regulation to increase the need for keeping the entity going. But as a society, how do we re-examine what we are doing and why we are doing that?
Politicians pass laws and often leave to agencies to develop and implement the “details.” When these are reviewed, common sense must be used so that rules don’t become so detailed and intricate that they are excessively costly and accomplish little to nothing for environmental safety.
When the cost of something becomes excessive, people often find ways to circumvent the rules — making things less safe for everyone.
Martin Rutstein is a professor of geology at SUNY, New Paltz; rockdocmsr@aol.com