Tuesday, February 25th, 2003.

By Chastity Pratt, Detroit Free Press

Despite being fined $1.4 million by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2000 for violating federal laws on asbestos management, the Detroit Public Schools system still has not consistently notified parents about the potentially cancer-causing material and has maintained sketchy records regarding asbestos, two violations it was cited for in 2000.

The district, where asbestos removal is ongoing at several schools, is required by law to send parents a letter each year informing them of their right to inspect the school’s asbestos management plan. Schools also are supposed to post the annual letter in the main office.

That hasn’t happened consistently since the 2000-01 school year – the last time the EPA was in the city for an inspection.

And since then, piles of asbestos have been removed from dozens of schools.

A Free Press review of asbestos management plans at eight schools showed potentially dangerous asbestos-containing insulation, mostly in areas where students do not go, such as boiler rooms. But some records showed such material being removed from lunchrooms, locker rooms, classrooms, corridors and air supply systems between 1998 and this year.

The management plans also showed varying levels of compliance with the 1986 federal Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act. Some management plans lacked records on recent asbestos removal, others had outdated annual training records and still others had no evidence that parents were notified about their right to view the plans – all violations the district was cited for by the EPA in 2000.

Some school principals refused to relinquish the plan books, which, by law, must be open to the public. The books are supposed to detail asbestos inspections, removals and repairs that have taken place in the school district since the federal law was passed in 1986.

Darrell Rodgers, executive director for the district’s department of Environmental Health & Safety, said though no notice about asbestos has been sent to parents yet this school year, the system’s procedures for removing asbestos and keeping records are running smoothly.

He said notices and records missing from a school’s plan book are also kept at the Schools Center Building.

“We have 300 facilities – it takes time to review and insert the information” into the individual books, he said.

Asbestos is harmless until it is damaged or deteriorates into dust and inhaled. Inhalable asbestos is known as friable.

Work goes on

In Detroit school buildings, which average more than 60 years old, friable asbestos is removed year-round after school hours. The air is tested before students can re-enter the area, to ensure that the removal process does not contaminate the buildings, Rodgers said.

A 1998 reinspection of the district listed every building in the school system as having some friable asbestos that needed to be removed or covered.

An inspector hired by the district then said he found asbestos contamination in the air in Detroit schools. The inspector, who did not want to be identified out of fear he could jeopardize future inspection work, said it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether children or staff inhaled dangerous amounts of asbestos.

“Were there exposures? Probably. Can you document them? Probably not,” the inspector said. “To make a determination whether a child has been exposed, you would literally have to monitor the air all day. That doesn’t happen in any schools anywhere.”

Asbestos expert Michael Harbut, past chairman of the occupation and environmental health section of the American College of Chest Physicians, said students have been at the lower end of the spectrum regarding asbestos exposure risks.

However, schools are getting older and there is concern that 20 years from now asbestos-related diseases could show up in people who were exposed in school as children, said Harbut, who is a medical doctor and an assistant professor at Wayne State University.

Positive steps

Detroit school officials say that after the EPA fine, the new administration, under Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Burnley, created the Department of Environmental Health & Safety, which spent $2.7 million cleaning up friable asbestos, training staff and updating each school’s management plan from 2000 to 2002.

In August and September of 2000, school officials sent notices on district letterhead to all staff and parents titled Annual Notification of Asbestos Management Plan.

No other notices about asbestos were sent out until January 2002, when information on the substance appeared on Page 5 of a staff newsletter. Rodgers said the newsletter was sent to all homes in the district.

Though asbestos removal has occurred this school year, the 2002-03 asbestos notification for parents and staff will be sent next month, Rodgers said.

Some parents said the district violated their trust by quietly removing asbestos without giving them details about the plans or the risks. Others say they trust district officials wouldn’t endanger their children.

“Our kids go to these schools, so we as parents have a right to know everything that is going on,” said Tina Marks, parent of a student at Burbank Middle School.

Asbestos removal began at Burbank on Feb. 11 and ended Feb. 14. School officials there refused to show the school’s plan book to a Free Press reporter, but said the abatement work was done in the basement and in some insulation pipes.

‘I’m not worried’

Bernard Smith, 67, whose granddaughter attends McGregor Elementary, said he didn’t remember hearing about the plan booksbut is glad schools are required to keep them. “It’s good they do because schools are supposed to be safe and this school seems safe; so I’m not worried,” he said.

On Nov. 20, asbestos abatement was started at McGregor, with removal from the boiler room, steam valve, steam line and other locations, according to the McGregor book.

Larry Nelson, 59, a Detroit resident who sparked the EPA investigation and whose sons graduated in 1991 and 1998 from Southeastern High, said school officials “don’t care about these black babies.”

Letters between Nelson and the EPA show that in 1998 he complained of conditions at Southeastern High, Keidan Elementary, Northern High and Mackenzie High.

After investigating the schools in Nelson’s complaint plus three others, the EPA cited the district for 14 violations and levied the $1.4 million fine in April 2000 for noncompliance in 256 schools.

The EPA and the district agreed the fine would go toward fixing the problem: training staff, conducting 6-month and 3-year inspections, performing asbestos removals and repair, and keeping records up to date.

The EPA is not due to return for a 3-year inspection until 2004.

What It Is

Asbestos is a mineral that, once mined and processed, looks like tiny hair-like fibers. One fiber is 1,200 times finer than a human hair.

It has been widely used in insulation and fireproofing products, including in schools built between World War II and around 1980.

Asbestos is not harmful unless it is damaged or deteriorates into dust.

If inhaled, asbestos can stay in a person’s system for 20 years or more, causing three serious diseases: lung cancer; asbestosis, or scarring of the lung, and mesothelioma, a cancer in the lining of the lungs or abdomen.

It may be 20 years or more before asbestos-related symptoms appear.

There is much uncertainty about the risk of exposure to low levels of asbestos fibers.

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Posted: Tuesday, February 25th, 2003 at 1:42 pm; filed under Asbestos in Schools, Full Archive.

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