Asbestos Cleanup Forces Closings at Wright State University

School officials at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, decided to temporarily shut down the school's Kettering Center Building last week. The historic building was found to have asbestos in the walls and pipes that needs to be removed. The school has moved fourteen employees from the building due to the presence of asbestos and for the time needed for the abatement and remediation processes.

According to Robert Sweeney, executive vice president and secretary to the school's Board of Regents, the presence of asbestos does not pose an imminent danger to students or employees. However, he stated that the asbestos had to be removed in order for plans to upgrade the facility could progress. A project was in the works to update the building's computer and communications networks, but those plans were put on hold when the asbestos was discovered and cannot continue until the mineral has been removed from the walls.

When the building was constructed in 1971, workers at the Eugene W. Kettering Science and Engineering Center used asbestos as insulation and fireproofing material. Many structures built in the area from the 1950s to the 1980s also used asbestos for these purposes. In August 2006, a survey of the center located asbestos in several parts of the building, including the air ducts, equipment shafts and mechanical areas.

Vicky Davidson, Wright State's associate vice president of facilities planning and development, estimated that the price for removing the asbestos would run between $650,000 and $750,000, with another $3 million to $6 million required to upgrade the walls, roofing and other parts of the building that would need to be torn out due to the asbestos removal process.

School leaders and board members are asking for help with these costs from the city of Dayton, state officials in Columbus and federal environmental agencies in Washington. Dayton's assistant city manager for strategic development Shelley Dickstein said that the school has requested funds from the Clean Ohio Fund, a "superfund"-style cash reserve created by state agencies to deal with problems such as these.

Wright State spokeswoman Stephanie Gottschlich stated that the school does not have the money to cover the costs of asbestos removal and abatement and is waiting to hear back on their requests to government agencies for help. She also said that the school and the city are discussing how both parties could put the building, located in Dayton's central business district, to better use.

Two major university community programs, the Center for Performance Excellence and the Center for Healthy Communities, were moved out of the building. The Center for Performance Excellence has been moved back to the school's main campus in nearby Fairborn, while the Center for Healthy Communities, an offshoot of the school's Boonshoft School of Medicine, moved to the town of Beavercreek and its Miami Valley Research Park.

Ms. Gottschlich also said that, the programs were moved from downtown to their new locations due to budget cuts recently passed by the state. She stated that, while the building was undergoing repairs, some parts of the structure would be used for storage to help reduce costs.

Sources: Dayton Daily News, WHIO

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