Safety, Health and Environmental (SHE) professionals may be operating with a false sense of security on asbestos issues. Asbestos was once the topic every SHE professional feared. However, over the last decade asbestos as been pushed to the back burner to make way for emerging issues such as mold, terrorism, and emergency preparedness. What SHE professionals don't realize is asbestos has been quietly reemerging as a front burner issue.
Asbestos can still be an issue even if inspections state no asbestos is present in a building. Asbestos inspections typically have flaws that SHE professionals need to be aware of. These ten flaws are summarized in the article ranging from improper inspection scope, lack of inspector and lab qualifications, new regulatory requirements, and just plain old errors.
Asbestos can also reappear if all asbestos has been removed from a building. Even new buildings can have asbestos. Asbestos products are still being produced, imported and sold in the U.S. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated over 13,000 metric tons of asbestos were imported into the U.S. in 2001. Common products still containing asbestos include flooring materials, roofing materials, friction materials (such as vehicle brake pads), and cement products.
Finally, all buildings are subject to contamination. Asbestos is naturally occurring and has contaminated communities and products during its mining. Damaged and disturbed asbestos in buildings has also cause contamination concerns. Improper building demolitions and unforeseen building collapses like the World Trade Center have resulted in large amounts of asbestos being released into the environment. Yet testing for contamination remains a very controversial topic. SHE professions will be made aware of these controversies so sound decisions can be made on potential asbestos contamination in buildings and products.
Safety, health and environmental (SHE) professionals are familiar with emerging issues requiring implementation of programs based upon limited information and a lot of fear. AIDS/HIV, asbestos, indoor air quality, and more recently terrorism and mold have jumped to the top of priority lists over the last 20 years. Fortunately SHE professionals are able to address these topics and establish programs to deal with regulatory compliance, risk management/insurance issues, and personnel concerns. Unfortunately asbestos is quietly making a comeback.
Asbestos became a regulatory issue in the early 1970's when its exposure was linked to adverse worker health effects. Massive numbers of individual and class action lawsuits followed in the 1980's bringing our legal system to a choking halt. In response to this crisis, Senator Hatch (R-Utah) had proposed a bill in the U.S. Senate in May of 2003 to streamline the asbestos lawsuits and free up the court systems. The bill "The Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution would create a $108 billion trust fund to efficiently compensate those with asbestos diseases, while capping the liability of businesses and curbing the number of bankruptcies. A huge industry was created in the mid 1980's to inspect, test, analyze, and abate asbestos found in buildings. The asbestos boom had begun.
