The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) is planning on implementing some changes to their regulations regarding the safe handling of asbestos during remediation projects. The changes will focus on improving the safety of both the laborers performing the asbestos removal, and the client whose home or business is undergoing the abatement process. The ADEQ believes that by both requiring more extensive tests of longer duration and lowering the costs for asbestos abatement certification and other asbestos related trades, standards can be improved without damaging the businesses of those performing the work. The new regulations should take effect in about three to six months.
The ADEQ as well as other environmental and health organizations around the world are concerned with reducing airborne asbestos at work sites to decrease the hazard to human health that it creates. Microscopic asbestos fibers can be accidentally inhaled or ingested in areas with high contamination, and can cause a variety of serious and even fatal diseases. Mesothelioma, an aggressive and terminal cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, claims the lives of some three thousand Americans every year.
Kendall Shelby, an Arkansas resident, owns an air quality company in Fort Smith that monitors asbestos levels in the air during asbestos removal projects. “If it’s a small, short project, you know a clearance check is all we do,” Shelby said, “anything of larger size we’ll try to throw in a few days of air monitoring just for the benefit of the client.”
Regulations regarding the safe handling of asbestos tightened quickly in the late 1980′s following the EPA’s Asbestos Ban and Phaseout Rule. After the EPA’s attempt to completely ban the substance was overturned in 1991, the regulations began to loosen some throughout the remainder of the decade. This ebb and flow of legal requirements concerning asbestos remediation has a direct effect on the companies in the industry.
“Back a long time ago we had 10, 15 guys in the field and now most companies are fairly small,” said Shelby. “As of now I have just three people out there.”
Concerning the newest regulations announced by the ADEQ, Shelby said “[it will] probably cost us an additional five percent across the board to do it the way the new regulations will require us to do it, which is something I think we can live with.”
While it may be necessary for Shelby and others to hire new staff or make other changes to adhere to the new regulations, adapting to change seems like something companies in the asbestos remediation industry are somewhat used to. “We did this already,” Shelby said, referring the changes in the late 1990′s, “so it’s not any big change to some companies.”
