Syosset Senior High School on Long Island, New York was evacuated Thursday morning, March 25, after asbestos debris from cleanup of the school’s boiler room was discovered near a dumpster at the front of the school.
The debris, which consisted of what were described as asbestos-coated planks, or boards, and the dumpster, located in an area completely accessible to students, staff and visitors, was first identified by a local television news station, CBS 2.
After the discovery, the school was evacuated and will remain closed until April 7, according to the Syosset Central School District Superintendent’s office. Fortunately, the closure fell at the beginning of spring break, so students will not miss a great deal of time.
Asbestos is a fibrous mineral widely used during most of the 20th century as an insulative material, and can still be found around the outsides of boilers used to heat water for hot water heating systems like radiators, baseboard hot water heating and in-floor radiant hot water heating.
Asbestos was also used in insulative blankets around the steam pipes associated with these boilers, and can even be found around furnace ducts, fireplaces, and wood stoves. In fact, its use as an insulator was almost ubiquitous until the mid-1970s, when various national health agencies began to recognize the dangers posed by exposure to the mineral.
By 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had established a ban on asbestos use in some domestically manufactured products, limiting it to one percent or less (by weight or volume) of the product in question. However, the October 2006 Covino Report also notes that the ruling was amended after passage, and asbestos was reintroduced into 18 product categories, including pipe wrap.
The 1989 ruling also did not curb its use in products manufactured overseas, in nations that do not have asbestos bans, and the U.S. still imports some 1,800 metric tons of chrysotile asbestos (2008 figures). Thus, it is still quite possible to find imported brake linings with 50 percent asbestos.
The problem with asbestos is that, unlike some other hazardous substances which enter the body and are then dispersed or removed by the circulatory, digestive or respiratory systems, asbestos fibers – once drawn inside the body by breathing or swallowing – remain for life.
People who are exposed to these fibers over a long period of time can develop asbestosis, a respiratory ailment that behaves like asthma but is caused by the progressive lung scarring of inhaled asbestos fibers.
Others can develop lung and digestive system tumors. One particularly disturbing form of cancer, which can be caused by a single exposure to asbestos fibers, is peritoneal mesothelioma. This cancer (of mesothelial tissues surrounding the abdominal organs) is very slow to develop, sometimes taking as much as five decades before it creates symptoms severe enough to require medical attention.
It is precisely because of this slow evolution that mesothelioma is so deadly. By the time doctors identify it, it has done so much damage the prognosis is typically about a year to live.
Some of the Syosset High School students were sent to South Woods Middle School; others were sent home. Many, or perhaps all, were likely close enough to the dumpsters to inhale or ingest asbestos fibers. One student described the evacuation as “very sudden and completely unexpected”.
The school has posted a message on its website noting that all after-school and weekend activities are also suspended. No one knows how long the asbestos planks remained inside the school, or how many students encountered them going into and out of the school after they were removed from the boiler room. The administration has reportedly been unavailable for comment since the early dismissal.
Sources: WABC, MyFoxNewYork
