Tuscumbia, Alabama Officials to Spend $12,000 for Asbestos Removal

Mesothelioma News: Tuscumbia, Alabama Officials to Spend $12,000 for Asbestos Removal

On Monday, September 28, the Tuscumbia City Council agreed to set aside more than $12,000 to remove or remediate asbestos in the old downtown post office.
The remediation contract, with privately owned Houston, Texas-based Southern Global Safety Services, will pave the way for using the old post office building, at Sixth and Dickson Streets in downtown Tuscumbia, for offsite City Hall offices and storage space.

The remediation or removal will focus on asbestos-containing pipe wrap used in the building’s HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning) system. The building, constructed in the late 1800s and rebuilt in 1939 after a fire, likely contains other asbestos, which was widely used in insulation, floor and ceiling tiles, and other construction materials during most of the last century.

Fire Chief David Cole, who says the contract with Southern Global includes sealing (covering) all pipes, both large and small diameter, also noted the presence of asbestos in one room, where it has fallen to the floor, and added that the contract covers asbestos remediation or removal throughout the building. No further specifics were provided.

The 3,500-square-foot building was closed in 2004, after more than a century of service, and sold to Harvey Robbins, president of Harvey Robbins Development, Inc. in 2005, for repurposing as part of Robbin’s downtown Tuscumbia renovation.

Robbins, a retired millionaire, is responsible for a great deal of the city’s renaissance in recent years. His most notable renovation is the Palace, built in the late 1800’s and recently renovated to form a soda fountain and old-fashioned drugstore which is now a hangout for local residents, particularly the young.

Robbins sold the building back to the city in July for $129,000, and the city subsequently hired Montgomery-based Parker Architecture to create a plan for its repurposing, with a cost not to exceed $3,000. The building, which the U.S. Postal Service appraised at $170,000 at the time of its closing, offers a good location for ground-floor offices and record storage, according to Mayor Bill Shoemaker. These records, some of which go back a century, have crowded out existing storage space at City Hall.

What is surprising is the cost of asbestos remediation. Even though the former post office building is not much larger than many American homes, the idea that remediation and removal can be accomplished on a 70-year-old building at the quoted price is heartening, and somewhat disconcerting.

Asbestos, which can cause a number of diseases including asbestosis – a chronic respiratory ailment which generally requires long exposure, is the primary cause of mesothelioma.
Occurring as pleural, peritoneal and pericardial (lung, abdomen and heart) mesothelioma, though most commonly in the lung, mesothelioma is a cancer whose long dormancy – often up to five decades – leads to poor prognoses, because by the time the cancer is diagnosed it has invaded so many vital tissues, eradication becomes impossible.

Patients diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma of long standing are generally given between a year and 18 months to live. Those whose mesothelioma is caught early, however, can survive up to five years – and beyond – on a regimen of radical treatments, including surgery and dual chemotherapies.

Source: Florence Times Daily

News

Resources

This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here

If you would like to receive a FREE information packet or have questions about mesothelioma, call us at:

Toll-Free 1-877-367-6376