The Failure of Asbestos Monitoring

The nature of asbestos is that it is latently dangerous. A pile of friable asbestos in a still-air environment may not register by an ambient air test, but, if somebody were to disturb that asbestos, or, perhaps, to attempt to clean it up without proper technology and training, then that person would be at great risk and the air test would — too little too late — recognize that. At the very least, then, protecting building occupants and
visitors requires that anybody that might come in close proximity to an instance of friable asbestos is already aware of its potential presence. Any intentional decision not to abate known asbestos thus hinges on the creation of an institutional memory.
Given the ubiquitousness of asbestos and the economic strain of large-scale removals, the industry standard is to ‘manage asbestos in place’ when possible. For example, in May of 2015, workers discovered that a pipe leak had led to the accumulation of a white powdery substance on the tops of the storage shelves of the Cultural Buildings’ 1st and 2nd floor; they suspected the powder to contain asbestos. The dust was sampled and laboratory analysis confirmed that it was 12% chrysotile asbestos (whereas anything over 1% is considered an asbestos-containing material).

This prompted the BGS to contract with Air Quality Management Services, Inc. (AQM) to conduct ambient air tests.14
The air samples contained a permissible concentration of asbestos so that no abatement action was legally required at that time. The report, authored by Randy Geoffroy, sparsely concluded that no airborne fiber exposure risk was anticipated and recommended: “ensure to not disturb dusty surfaces as this could affect air quality and likely lead to an exposure risk.“ Geoffroy also wrote that dusty surfaces should be cleaned with a HEPA vacuum, but again, this was optional. The only way that this passive recommendation could be made in good faith is on the assumption that some kind of institutional memory exists — that workers in the foreseeable future will be prepared to avoid dusty surfaces in the archive storage rooms.
The FOAA data revealed that this was not a reasonable expectation. In fact, knowledge of the 1st and 2nd floor archive rooms as asbestos hazards had been known already since at least October of 1987, when the Cultural Building was inspected and the author took these notes:
"fireproofing has been encapsulated, but very poorly. Appears to be a coat of paint. People working in this area say that pieces fall off whenever it is hit. The shelves holding archive materials go clear to the fireproofing..."15

It is remarkable that, nearly 30 years later, the problems in those areas were unresolved.

14 AQM Project #15-276
15Inspection of Capitol Complex, DOF-11-088, Hall-Kimbrell Environmental Services Inc.

As a second example of a project report recommendation. In March of 2002, Morrissey Enterprises was hired to encapsulate an asbestos-fireproofed steel I-beam in the 4th floor mechanical fan room. The corresponding project report from NTC recommended that “periodic inspections of the area be performed on a monthly basis.”16 Of course this recommendation potential to be effective is predicated on communication and institutional memory. A May 30, 2019 survey conducted by the Northeast Test Consultants for the BGS17 found that many rooms in the cultural building contained asbestos dust in concentrations which correlate with a “high” risk, according to accepted industry standard.18 Many of these samples registered at concentrations which anticipate airborne exposure levels of more than 20-30 times the OSHA permissible limit of 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter. Among the locations which produced these concerning samples was the third/fourth floor fan room from the aforementioned 2002 project report. Evidently the recommendation to periodically monitor the room was ineffective. Other concerning samples came from third floor and basement mechanical rooms. When cross-referencing this report with the older NTC reports in the FOAA, it became apparent that the presence of asbestos-containing building components in those rooms had already been precisely documented in the early 2000’s.19 If the asbestos in these rooms was being ‘managed in place,’ then it was being poorly managed.

16 NTC Job #5988-2002, Project Report
17 “Contamination Assessment Relating to Asbestos Containing Surfacing Material” NTC Job #17092-2019
18 As elaborated in the Millette/Hayes Report “Settled Dust Sampling and Analysis,” 1994
19 Documented, for example, in the November, 2000 annotated floor plans of draftsperson M. Fox, contained in NTC Job #4504-2000

From the various emails, reports, and memos in the FOAA data, it is clear that many individuals have come to possess extensive knowledge of specific episodes of the Cultural Building’s history of Asbestos. Many of the key discussions occur between a few top officials at the BGS and an industrial hygienist from a consulting firm, chief among them NTC, which has performed not less than 16 asbestos-related contracts at the Cultural Building since 2000. But these executive decision-makers come and go, and the effective knowledge of the buildings’ history seems to disappear with them; the history of asbestos management at the Cultural Building center extends now 35 years, extending several generations of responsibility for managing its asbestos problem. The correspondences in the FOAA between recent directors of the BGS indicate only a passing familiarity with the building’s history up to 2000 and no familiarity with its 1980s abatements.20