Colorado high school evacuated for asbestos danger

BROOMFIELD, Colo.- Boulder Valley School District in Colorado has ordered the emergency evacuation and indefinite closure of Broomfield High School in Broomfield, Colo. The closure and evacuation were prompted by high levels of asbestos in a boiler room and adjacent corridors. Environmental contractors have been hired to investigate the source and scope of the problem on the weekend following the Friday, December 14 closing. “We want to be very careful,” said Briggs Gamblin, a school district spokesperson. The school has been marked off limits with yellow caution tape and warning signs have been posted. All classes and activities at the high school are canceled until further notice. The asbestos problem first came to the school’s attention after a boiler failed at the school on November 6. Because the school is over 40 years old and the boiler is also older, school officials informed the School Department of the incident because of concerns about asbestos. After the repair work was done, say reports, maintenance staff swept up the debris from the work for future disposal and made the notification. Boulder Valley School District Operations and Environmental Services were notified of the incident and collected samples of the debris for testing. The test results came back on December 12, showing higher than expected levels of asbestos in the boiler room. The school officials had thought that the higher levels of asbestos were confined to the boiler room. Tests on the boiler room showed that the initial problem had been cleaned up, but a round of precautionary tests in the areas around the boiler room told another story. The results of the latest round of testing were received by the school at 4:30 p.m. Friday afternoon. Those results showed unsafe levels of asbestos in the corridor outside the boiler room. School and district officials had originally believed that the asbestos hazard was confined to the boiler room. The results of the later tests came as a shock. At this time, they believe that the asbestos is from the boiler room and from another, unknown source. Gamblin said that the results led to the decision to close the school until the air quality is deemed safe. At this time, it’s unclear how long that will be. According to a news release from the school district, “Follow-up air quality testing results on samples taken from the 400 corridor of the school came back with higher than expected levels of asbestos. These ratings are above acceptable safety levels.” The finding of unsafe levels of airborne asbestos in the school is a major concern. The mineral, which is present in nearly any building built before about 1980, has been implicated in the development of many lung diseases including mesothelioma, a rare cancer that can take up to thirty years after exposure to develop. School officials admit that they don’t know how long the asbestos levels have been high enough to expose students and staff to unsafe levels of the toxic particles. They began testing for asbestos after the boiler failure in early November. The school district calls the news “unsettling”, and says it will not reopen the school until it is 100% certain of student and staff safety. They warned parents that the asbestos issue may arise again in the future, as the average age of the school district’s building is 44 years old. (Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News)