MONTGOMERY, Alabama – This summer, the Montgomery County Public schools will continue with its asbestos removal program. The county plans to remove asbestos containing building materials for 13 or 14 schools this summer, says Nate Brown, an environmental health specialist with the school system.

At one of the schools, Poolesville Elementary School, work will start just after the school year end in June. The work will involve removing floor tile and adhesives from a storage room, a lounge and six classrooms.

About half of the county’s public schools contain asbestos, said Lynne Zarate, who is a school system environmental safety coordinator. She would not release the names of other schools that are slotted for asbestos removal this summer, she said, because the funding has not yet been allocated so the list is tentative.

‘‘It’s a periodic thing,” Brown said. ‘‘We just continue to go through each school.”

Asbestos, which is found in many of the nation’s schools, is a fibrous mineral that was widely used in building and construction materials from the early years of the 1900s through the 1970s. It can become a serious health risk if the material that contains asbestos – which ranges from paper to adhesives to cinderblock – is disturbed enough so that asbestos fibers are released in the air. When that happens, the asbestos fibers can be inhaled and cause a number of serious illnesses, including lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma.

Asbestos in floor tiles is generally non-friable, and is not dangerous unless it is extremely damaged – by being sanded, for instance.

Brown said that the Montgomery County Public School system began removing asbestos after the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act went into effect in 19898. That act requires public schools to create a management plan for each building under their jurisdiction, including an inventory of all asbestos containing building materials, and that the asbestos materials be removed if they are damaged or pose a health risk.

Poolesville Elementary was built in 1960, at a time when asbestos was considered almost a necessity in school and public buildings because of its fire resistant properties. After the works this summer, said Brown, there will be four or five classrooms remaining with asbestos floor tiles.

The school department has not sought estimates for the work yet. They intend to seek bids in or around March. The date of the abatement is tentatively set to run from June 16 to June 27.

The school will not be entirely empty during the renovation and abatement. According to Poolesville Elementary Principal, there will be one group using the school at the time – the Bar-T summer day camp. The camp will have the choice of using a different portion of the school or find another location for the summer camp.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 10:14 am and is filed under Asbestos Exposure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.