State and County Decline to Handle Asbestos Risk in Cantonville, Maryland

A natural rock formation in a Cantonville, Maryland construction site has local residents worried due to the presence of asbestos in the rock. Many are calling for the rock to be removed and for the county and state to regulate the work to ensure public health and safety are not compromised.

The situation has recently become high priority for residents because of the risk of asbestos exposure, which is known to cause mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.

A disease such as malignant mesothelioma is especially harmful due to the latency period associated with the disease. Most cases aren’t even diagnosed until the advanced stages of development because mesothelioma symptoms do not arise for several decades.

The locals in the area became concerned because the construction company working on the site was actually crushing the rock, which is a sure way to release asbestos fibers. The owner of the site is Enterprise Homes, who plans to build an affordable housing complex for seniors when completed.

When the presence of asbestos was originally detected, the company voluntarily ceased construction and subsequently carried out testing around nearby homes to determine if there was an exposure risk.

The problem, however, is that the state has refused to adopt Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act regulations to deal with any future discoveries of asbestos. There are no county or state regulations to control the handling of asbestos in this type of situation, and both the county and the state are seemingly reluctant to take control.

Bill Clarke, a county representative of the Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management, says, “Nobody (in the county) knows exactly how to treat it because nobody knows … how it relates to construction. It shouldn’t be something the county should do, it should be something done at the state level. It would not be helpful to develop something hyper-local if it’s outside the county, too.”

In another statement, Maryland Department of the Environment spokesperson Robert Ballinger says, “I look at this as pretty much over. The company has stepped forward and is controlling the dust. We have worked with the community association and addressed their concerns; what we’ve done is what we felt we had to do for the betterment of public health.”

Steve Whisler, local resident and president of a local civic association, says that AHERA standards should be applicable in this case, but the Maryland Department of the Environment insists that there is no need to direct the handling of asbestos because Enterprise Homes was willing to remedy the problems.

Local resident don’t agree, and they are backed by Baltimore County Councilman Sam Moxley.  He believes that even though Enterprise Homes handled the situation properly, there’s no guarantee that a similar situation won’t arise in the future, and that guidelines need to be in place to cope with the possibility.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 2:45 pm 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.