Asbestos Found in Partly Demolished Apartment

The Daily News, Chris Paschenko
Published October 8, 2007

LA MARQUE — Cleanup of a partially demolished apartment complex, which has blighted the city for years, continued Monday about two months after the state learned a contractor failed to obtain an asbestos survey. By threat of a $10,000-a-day fine, demolition of Crossing at La Marque was stopped in early August until an asbestos survey could be completed. A Missouri City environmental firm notified the new owner, GC Wealth Investment Group, on Aug. 16 that asbestos was found in seven of the remaining 13 buildings, according to the survey provided by city officials. No asbestos, however, was found in debris fields, which workers have been removing for more than a week. Todd Wingler, a regulatory environmental engineer with the Texas Department of State Health Services, said a state inspector sampled the debris field and found it contained no asbestos. Wingler said no determination has been made on whether the state would impose fines for the demolition, which La Marque officials said was permitted to Richard Ennis of E&E Enterprises. “It will probably be at least a couple of months before it makes its way to the enforcement branch,” Wingler said. Terry Key, a building official with the city, said asbestos was found in sheetrock and flooring material. Fire Chief Todd Zacherl said the city condemned the buildings in 2006 and found them to be structurally unsound. A state-approved asbestos-removal contractor can demolish the remaining buildings without entering the structures to remove the cancer-causing material first. “They had not been maintained for about two years and are in pretty bad shape,” Zacherl said. “People were stealing copper out of there, and they were rotted. One building in the back is the worst. The second floor has already sagged to the first floor.” Wingler said any asbestos is a public health risk. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is a commonly used building material that can cause lung cancer. “The way the law reads is no level considered safe,” Wingler said. “What’s regulated by state and federal law is anything that has more than 1 percent in it ... It has to be disposed of in a landfill, mainly to control emissions in the air.” Asbestosis symptoms won’t appear in humans for 20 to 30 years, Wingler said. “When the lung sac has an asbestos fiber in it, the body tries to attack it by starving the tissues surrounding the fiber,” he said. “The more scaring that occurs, the more lung capacity is decreased along with the ability to get more air. The flexibility and ability to breathe deeper is gone. It’s a slow suffocation process.” A 2004 study by the Environmental Working Group cited nearly 10,000 deaths nationwide attributed to asbestos by the National Centers for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control. “Because it’s been used in so many things for so many years, it’s unlikely you’ll find anyone in the U.S. without asbestos in their lungs,” Wingler said. “But just because a few fibers get into your body, that’s not going to kill you, necessarily.”