County in West Virginia Continues Quest to Rid Schools of Asbestos

August 4, 2008 – Kanawha County school officials have been trying to remove asbestos materials from district schools for more than 20 years, but the job is nowhere near complete and it’s proving to be both expensive and time-consuming.

Thousands of schools in the United States were built using asbestos-containing construction materials. Asbestos fibers are extremely durable, flexible, and fire-resistant. Unfortunately, those same properties contribute to asbestos being a health hazard. When inhaled, these fibers can become lodged in the lungs, and because of their durability, the body experiences great difficulty in breaking them down and expeling them. After several decades, these fibers can cause malignant mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.

Many schools that were built with asbestos materials end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on containment or removal to prevent students and staff from asbestos exposure.

Terry Hollandsworth, director of maintenance and energy management for the Kanawha County school district, says around $300,000 has already been spent on asbestos abatement this year.

However, a stronger limiting factor than money is time. The dangers of asbestos exposure require all abatement activities to be carried out during school vacations while students and staff are off campus. For this reason, abatement projects are generally carried out during summer months, and have to be completed by the time school starts in August.

So far this year, about 100 chalkboards, 3,000 square feet of plaster ceiling, and more than 120,000 square feet of floor tiles have been removed from Kanawha district schools. In 2007, an additional 100,000 square feet of tiles were removed, along with 55,000 square feet in 2006.

The ongoing removal project began in 1984, after asbestos exposure was conclusively linked to mesothelioma, asbestosis, and lung cancer.

Hollandsworth believes it’s nearly impossible to predict when the asbestos abatement will finally be completed for the Kanawha County school district. The oldest schools still contain large amounts of asbestos, and those schools have a long way to go before they can be deemed free of the toxin.

In the meantime, Hollandsworth says the district will take all necessary precautions to ensure abatement is carried out safely and follows all state regulations for asbestos removal.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 11:28 am and is filed under Asbestos Exposure, Mesothelioma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.