Oregon City Fined for Asbestos Violations

CENTRAL POINT - The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has fined the city of Central Point a total of $815 for a series of violations related to the handling of asbestos during the February 2009 demolition of a century old house on Manzita Street. Asbestos is listed by the Environmental Protection Agency as a known carcinogen (cancer-causing agent), and OSHA officials claim the city failed to conform to numerous asbestos abatement regulations when its workers tore down the owner abandoned structure.

The city was officially charged with a failure to protect its demolition workers from asbestos at the Manzita St. site when it failed to provide them with adequate training, as well as protective clothing and air purifying respirators. OSHA claims the city was obligated to follow a strict set of asbestos abatement regulations when it knew its workers would be razing a structure that was built prior to 1980.

OSHA investigators were only able to detect trace amounts of asbestos in a debris pile at the site, but OSHA spokesperson Melanie Mesaros says that isn't the point. "Despite no asbestos being found on the site," said Mesaros, "that doesn't mean they followed all the rules." Mesaros outlined the extreme health hazards associated with asbestos and then added, "Basically, they were supposed to have told the employees there was potentially asbestos there or that the material could have contained asbestos. They were then supposed to have actually tested for it before they started working."

Asbestos is a naturally occurring silicate mineral that has been widely utilized by mankind for thousands of years. Whether mined from the earth or extracted from rock formations, asbestos can be found around the globe in a wide variety of chemical compositions, types, and colors. All forms of asbestos are characterized by numerous desirable traits that once made the mineral attractive to numerous industries that prized the substance because it is nearly fireproof, it resists damage from mold, moisture or harsh chemical corrosives, it has a very high tensile strength, is an excellent insulating material and more.

Because of its unique nature, asbestos found its way into everything from building materials to truck parts to kitchen appliances to talcum powder, though, its widespread use came to a halt in the early 1970s when medical experts confirmed that asbestos could be hazardous to human health. Scientists confirmed that microscopic, airborne asbestos fibers could become permanently lodged in the lungs where, up to decades later, they could cause the onset of serious respiratory diseases such as malignant mesothelioma - an aggressive and particularly lethal form of lcancer.

It is because of the extreme dangers of asbestos that OSHA officials decided to fine the city in an effort to make the town more aware of its responsibility to keep its workers safe. City officials claim their errors and violations were small ones, and Central Point's Public Works Director Bob Pierce stated, "The outcome was we made some mistakes and we fessed up to those and were fined $815." Pierce then went on to say the city doesn't take worker safety lightly. "The bottom line for us is we did everything we knew about, and we did not go out there and say ‘oh the heck with it, we don't care, let's just do this'. We went out there thinking we had done everything the way it should have been done."

According to Pierce, the city will now subcontract out all of its demolition projects to guard against future liabilities. "We're simply not going to tear anything down ourselves anymore," said Pierce. The Public Works Director added that the city would also adopt a new set of asbestos abatement guidelines that are in compliance with OSHA and Department of Environmental Quality standards, guidelines that are designed to further protect all city workers from exposures to asbestos.

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