On October 29, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced an investigation into Highlands County handling of the second phase of the Sebring Parkway Project, a road rebuild designed to facilitate traffic and ease congestion by diverting around downtown Sebring.
The highway has been closed since July of 2007, but environmental officers are now beginning to question whether county construction crews followed prescribed protocols for asbestos handling when they installed new water lines and other utilities without removing the old, asbestos-containing water pipes.
The Sebring Parkway Phase II officially opened in September. Phase III required halting construction and closing the road at Fred Wild Elementary School. Project completion of all phases is scheduled for sometime in 2015.
In a Sept. 29 letter, the DEP asked the county to submit all correspondence (including contracts) from every entity involved in the project, seeking to verify if Highlands County crews did indeed either encase old, asbestos-containing water pipe in concrete, as required, or follow NESHAP (National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants) procedures as established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency which involves wetting the pipes and placing them in designated bags to be sent to a hazardous waste landfill.
The DEP is also questioning why the county failed to provide proper, timely notification (10 days, under DEP rules), why it did not acquire the required permits for such work, and why it did not fully describe the scope of the project, according to DEP program administrator Randy Landers, who said the agency’s involvement in these kinds of projects is triggered by more than 260 feet of asbestos-containing water piping.
The project has so far abandoned an estimated 660 feet of such pipes, and – because asbestos is known to cause cancer – the EPA and its state agencies follow such projects carefully.
Water pipe made before the 1970s contains asbestos within its concrete, and the asbestos (considered non-friable because it is encapsulated by cement) is generally harmless unless broken or degraded. Such water pipe becomes friable, under EPA definition, unless the piping is removed in whole sections; that is, from one joint to the next, in unbroken fashion. Even then, NESHAP requirements demand wetting the material and disposing of it as described above.
Asbestos is the only known cause of malignant mesothelioma, a cancer of the mesothelial linings that surround the heart (pericardium), lungs (pleura) and abdomen (peritoneum). Pleural mesothelioma is the most common, occurring in three-fourths of all cases, and can be caused by a single exposure to asbestos. In addition, mesothelioma has a long dormancy period with few definitive symptoms, so that when finally diagnosed it commonly leads to a prognosis of less than two years to live.
The Sebring Parkway Project investigation was triggered by a Sebring resident, Preston Colby, who said that on Sept. 9 he saw county trucks remove and/or crush asbestos water pipe from the Eucalyptus Street location where construction was ongoing.
The complaint was supported by testimony from a Highlands County worker, Richard Solis, who worked on the project early in 2009 and collected pipe samples.
The DEP was unable to give credence to the reports, but did collect its own samples of water piping found along the project’s length, including Commerce Avenue and Highlands Avenues, Grape Fruit and Conter Avenues, and Sebring Parkway itself.
Of those samples, all tested positive for asbestos, with some samples containing up to 20 percent. Piles of asbestos-containing water pipe have also been found at the Highlands County landfill, which is not designated for hazardous waste disposal.
Sources: Oregon Dept of Environmental Quality, Highlands Today
