Israeli Neighborhood Put on Hold Pending Asbestos Cleanup

NAHARIYA, Israel - Construction of a new neighborhood planned by members of the Nahariya Cooperative Agriculture Association (NCAA) has been blocked for over two years due to extensive asbestos contaminations at the site. Asbestos is a know cancer-causing agent, and NCAA members are understandably concerned about the toxic substance's presence in an area where coop members want to build new homes for their children. NCAA members have been counseled by numerous asbestos experts not to proceed with their construction plans until all of the asbestos has been removed using government mandated abatement procedures, an extraordinarily expensive proposition that no one wants to pay for.

A professional asbestos inspector and member of the NCAA, Amos Golan, reports that the contaminations are the result of decades of operation of the Eitanit Company, a manufacturer of asbestos that used the NCAA's land for a private dumping ground for asbestos contaminated waste from their manufacturing operations. No longer in existence, Eitanit dumped their asbestos contaminated waste in numerous other parts of Nahariya, and the company was famous for offering the toxic substance to local residents for use in the construction of sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, and other applications. This corporate misbehavior continued all through the 1950s and 60s, and as a result, the Israeli community could easily be compared to the American town of Libby, Montana, where the chemical and asbestos mining giant W. R. Grace Company was been responsible for similar, community wide asbestos contaminations.

"This was an era when people were poor, and asbestos was considered a fantastic material," said Golan. "You just spread the material, and with a little water, you had a firm expanse like concrete, but even better," concluded Golan.

Not better, as everyone knows today. The problem with the hard packed, pavement-like areas that are located all throughout Nahariya, is that once these areas are disturbed-such as by the pressure of an automobile tire-microscopic asbestos fibers can be released into the air where they pose the greatest health concern.

Decades ago, asbestos truly was considered to be a miracle fiber that had countless uses in agriculture (soil aeration products) and numerous other industries. Asbestos occurs naturally in the soil and can also be located in exposed outcroppings of rock. Asbestos comes in a variety of colors, chemical compositions, and types-each with its own geologic name, but health officials have warned since the early 1970s that exposures to airborne asbestos fibers, regardless of type, can be extremely hazardous to your health.

Certain types of asbestos, when fractured, release millions of microscopic, brittle, and needle-like fibers into the air where they can be inhaled into the lungs. These fibers lodge themselves permanently in soft lung tissues and can never be removed. Up to 50 years later, these fibers can result in the onset of serious respiratory diseases such as the dreaded, highly aggressive, incurable, and inevitably fatal pleural mesothelioma-an exclusively asbestos-caused form of cancer. Needless to say, the NCAA members are rightly concerned about the extensive presence of asbestos on their proposed construction site.

There is some good news. Eitanit has agreed to pay for the cleanup of a small portion of the land where a factory access road and well are located, and abatement procedures are currently underway in this limited location. The NCAA has secured some additional funding for further asbestos abatement efforts, but it's not enough.

"No one is taking responsibility," said coop member Penina Freitung. "Not the municipality, not the region's urban league, not the state, and not the factory. So, in the end, we're bearing the burden ourselves," complained Freitung. Of even greater concern to many Nahariya residents is fact that so many of the town's asbestos contaminated areas are receiving no asbestos abatement procedures whatsoever-a highly dangerous and unacceptable situation, indeed.

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