Mesothelioma Articles

Asbestos stalls rehab at Lowry

Colorado, military in standoff over danger of debris

By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

March 15, 2004

An environmental dispute between Colorado regulators and the military is stalling one of the country's most promising base redevelopments and could add billions of dollars to the cost of such projects nationally.

At the former Lowry Air Force Base on the eastern fringes of Denver, the battle is over a low-risk contaminant: trace levels of asbestos in the soil. But the ramifications of the feud are significant.

Already, the problem has cost developers millions of dollars, chased away one builder, led home buyers to cancel contracts and jeopardized future work on a swath of the base. Most of all, it has put a smudge on what's billed as a prototype for converting aging military facilities to showcase urban neighborhoods.

The clash began last spring. That's when excavators found asbestos-covered debris left over from long-ago demolished military buildings in an area slated for $400,000 homes.

The finding alarmed state regulators, who quickly halted construction on a corner of the 1,866-acre base while they tried to get a handle on the problem. The area in question stretches from East Eighth Avenue on the south to East 11th Avenue on the north and from Quebec Street on the west to Ulster Way on the east.

Now, millions of dollars later, land developers - bowing to state orders - are hauling away truckloads of asbestos-tainted soil as they prepare new homesites. In several cases, freshly landscaped yards are being torn out. Workers with respirators and wheelbarrows shovel out the dirt in 200-square-foot grids.

"It's been painful," said Eric Wittenberg, president and chief executive of McStain Neighborhoods, a Boulder-based home builder that has spent $2.7 million clearing asbestos-tainted soil at Lowry. "We've been blessed with some very patient homeowners who put up with a lot."

Critics say cleanup is overkill

But critics, including the Air Force, the redevelopment agency selling off the base's land to builders and the builders themselves, call the cleanup overkill.

They view it as a regulatory overreaction to far bigger asbestos problems elsewhere, namely in Libby, Mont., where hundreds of residents have died and are dying from massive exposure to the toxic mineral that was released by nearby mining over the span of decades.

The heart of the dispute lies with demands by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment that soil at Lowry be removed even when samples contain less than 1 percent of asbestos by weight. Such levels traditionally have been considered trace amounts and not a threat to health.

If the state adheres to such a soil standard, opponents of the cleanup say, the cost of redevelopment on old military and urban sites will skyrocket - or work will halt altogether. Developers, the thinking goes, would have little interest in hauling away acres and acres of dirt tainted with bits of debris that may pose little, if any, threat to public health.

"If any amount of asbestos is a health risk, then we've got ourselves a problem," said Hilarie Portell, spokeswoman for the Lowry Redevelopment Authority, the quasi-public entity charged with quarterbacking Lowry's makeover.

Portell accuses the health department of "policy-making in the field," without the science to support such a stringent approach.

Indeed, she and others fear that should such a guideline become standard practice nationally, the potential redevelopment of hundreds of military bases set for closure could be at risk.

"Lowry is a model. People do watch what's happening here," she said. "That's why this asbestos work is precedent-setting."

Cleanup orders defended

But health department regulators see things differently. They defend their cleanup orders and dispute the notion that demands at Lowry mean a replication of costly asbestos removal nationwide.

Moreover, the agency is unhappy with the Air Force. It has refused to comply with orders to clean up asbestos-contaminated areas at Lowry still in the military's hands.

The Air Force, arguing that there's no scientific basis for the health department's cleanup demands, also has refused to reimburse builders and developers at Lowry the $15 million associated with digging out soil the military had previously certified as clean.

"We have all the home builders and the LRA doing their thing, getting the neighborhood cleaned up, while the Air Force drags its feet," said Jeff Edson, who regulates polluted federal facilities for the state health department.

Earlier this month, the Air Force incurred even more regulatory wrath when it released an initial risk assessment for Lowry. The study concluded that no soil needed to be removed and that an acceptable cancer risk among workers at the site would be two cases in 10,000. The health department sees cancer risks higher than one in a million cases as cause for intervention.

If anything, Edson said, the document "confirms what our fear was all along that asbestos in (Lowry's) northwest neighborhood posed an unacceptable risk to residents."

Doug Karas, a spokesman for the Air Force Real Property Agency, anticipates a long struggle with the state on the matter. He's also aware that builders and developers plan to sue the Air Force to get their $15 million back, but insists the Air Force needs better evidence that the cleanup is justified before it shells out that kind of money.

"We'll probably have lots of spirited discussions as we go down this road," Karas said.

The fallout over the asbestos debacle has been significant.

Richmond Homes, one builder that was weary of asbestos costs, pulled out, leaving the Lowry Redevelopment Authority to find another buyer for the last bit of its land. (It did.)

The asbestos removal work slowed construction for other builders. Some nervous buyers canceled contracts.

Meanwhile, a 22-acre parcel also slated for redevelopment will likely sit empty for the foreseeable future. That's because no developer will take possession of the site unless the Air Force clears it of asbestos, which it currently has no plans to do.

Risks in soil uncertain

Key to the disagreement at Lowry is the lack of research on risks posed by asbestos in soil. Until recently, regulators focused on airborne asbestos because inhaling the mineral exposes people to the long, sharp microscopic fibers. The fibers impale themselves on the lining of the lung, possibly leading to nightmarish respiratory diseases that build up over decades, then suffocate their victims over months or years.

But in the mining town of Libby, Mont., and a trouble spot in northern California where homes and schools are being developed atop land contaminated with naturally occurring asbestos, toxicologists have come to learn another lesson: The mineral can easily be dislodged from the soil and may create a dangerous airborne exposure in the process.

Primarily, they've learned that the 1 percent threshold, widely adopted nationwide, may do little to protect human health. That's because millions of the virtually weightless fibers still may be contained in a soil sample, even when - by weight - they make up less than 1 percent of it.

For exposures to asbestos-contaminated dirt in a neighborhood like Lowry, then, picture adults running over open land, stirring up the ground with their sneakers; or children playing in an unlandscaped yard; or a sandlot ballplayer inhaling when a runner slides into base.

But even then, scientists aren't sure how many such exposures might pose a hazard. They believe victims usually are exposed multiple times, over time.

"While it's generally accepted that you need a fairly good level of exposure to have a risk, we just don't know where that bottom end is," said Aubrey Miller, senior medical officer for the Environmental Protection Agency's regional office in Denver.

"We see cases of (the asbestos disease) mesothelioma with low exposures. We've seen it (contracted) by kids when their father worked (around asbestos) for a year. How much of it did he bring home" on his clothes? Miller said.

Despite the EPA's better understanding of the dangers of asbestos in soil, the agency still is wrestling with the issue and unwilling to stake out a public position. It has been silent about the Lowry debate, leaving the state of Colorado to set out the tough and controversial cleanup standards.

"Is the state's approach reasonable? That's hard to know," Miller said. "Is this something they're going to be consistent on? Is it just because the feds are going to pay the dollars that they want out of this site? This becomes a huge public policy issue."

An unusual case

Howard Roitman, director of environmental programs for the health department, said Colorado's approach has been, and will be, consistent. He cited a previous case in 2002 at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, in which the state demanded the Air Force clean up significant amounts of asbestos-laced soil.

In that case, the military did so, with little complaint. Roitman acknowledges that that case was simpler, however, because the military wasn't working around people's homes and a fledgling neighborhood.

Lowry, he said, is an unusual case because the military knocked down buildings decades ago across a wide area and left much of the debris - including asbestos scraps - in place. In the vernacular of the health department, regulators called the Lowry site an "asbestos spill."

That scenario, Roitman said, is uncommon, and won't play out at bases and other sites nationally as critics of the cleanup claim.

In most cases, Roitman said, buildings were knocked down and debris hauled away. That was the case even decades ago, before regulations guiding the handling and disposal of asbestos-containing materials.

"What's different at Lowry is that over a large area, many buildings were demolished, debris was left in place. It was spread around," he said.

And contrary to assertions by Lowry Redevelopment Authority officials, asbestos debris contaminating the soil has not been a significant issue at other major redevelopment sites in Denver, such as the Platte Valley or the Golden Triangle, Roitman said.

Nor, he said, would the health department treat situations involving a private developer differently, just as it's not targeting Lowry because of the Air Force's deep pockets.

"If we encountered the same situation elsewhere, it would be the same," Roitman said. "You just don't see this very often."

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