Asbestos Cancels School At Bethel High
BETHEL, Connecticut – Bethel High School students will have another day off from school Friday morning when the state Department of Health monitors air quality tests being done there as a follow-up to an asbestos release that happened Tuesday night. The department will also be reviewing the response to Tuesday’s incident.
William Gerrish, a Department of Health spokesman, said that the department’s focus is to be certain that there will be proper assessment and clean-up. The agency will be reviewing the situation and determining if appropriate steps were taken to ameliorate the risk and safeguard the students and staff at the high school.
According to accounts of the incident, Eagle Environmental is working on an asbestos abatement project as part of the high school’s renovation. On Tuesday evening, according to a letter from the Health Department which Eagle Environmental faxed to school Principal Pat Consentino, workers dropped a science lab tabletop which broke in front of one of the classrooms. Workers immediately took an air quality sample and did an on-the-spot test, which showed elevated levels of asbestos in the area.
The workers immediately cleaned the area and took a second air sample, which showed decreased asbestos levels – levels which were within the Department of Health standard for re-occupancy of an area after asbestos abatement.
Since the second air sample showed decreased levels, Eagle Environmental did not notify school officials about the incident. Instead, they sent the two air sample tests to a lab for further analysis. The results for the first air sample test arrived Wednesday evening, confirming the heightened asbestos levels immediately after the table was dropped. The results of the second air sample test were not expected until Thursday evening.
Based on the results of the first sample, the health department informed Eagle Environmental that the school should be closed and no students allowed on the premises until a second air quality test showed clean air.
School Superintendent Gary Chesley said that school officials aren’t convinced that the dropped table top incident was the source of the elevated asbestos levels. Chesley said that a Thursday afternoon meeting between school department officials and Eagle Environmental shed some doubt on that version of events.
Ray Folino of Eagle Environmental said that school was not closed Wednesday because of the second test that showed clean air conditions, but that there are protocols to follow and sometimes the protocols kick in “after the samples are analyzed”, but still must be followed. The school was closed Thursday, he said, strictly as a precautionary measure.
Chelsey and First Selectman decided to close the high school on Friday as well in order to test the entire area. Says Chelsey, “I don’t care what the test results are, frankly. I want to make sure the place is 100 percent clean.”
He also said that both Eagle Environmental and the First Selectman have assured him that in the future, he will be notified immediately if asbestos is released at the high school.
Asbestos fibers, which are about one thousandth the thickness of a human hair, can float in the air for hours after being disturbed in any way. Once inhaled, they may remain in the body for decades, and cause lung scarring, asbestosis and mesothelioma, a rare cancer that is found almost exclusively in those who have been exposed to asbestos.
