Discovery of asbestos closes nashville ymca

NASHVILLE, Tennessee â€" Work crews doing renovations at the Nashville YMCA discovered asbestos during their work. The Y will be closed from April 2 to April 13 while the asbestos is removed. The asbestos is in the form of insulation in the walls. The members of the Church Street YMCA will be welcome at other Y branches during the closure. The Church Street facility is in the midst of a major renovation project which will add 60,000 square feet to the building. During the renovation, workers discovered but did not disturb the asbestos-containing obsolete insulation material. The Y administration has contracted with an asbestos abatement firm to remove the materials professionally during the closure. Vice President of Communications for YMCA of Middle Tennessee Phil Newman said that the administration has built in an extra day or two to the closure to be confident that all work will be completed in the time set aside. Asbestos is a fibrous mineral that was often woven and mixed into insulating materials before 1980 to take advantage of its insulating, fire resistant and rot resistant properties. Unfortunately, dust and fibers from asbestos have been shown to cause serious health complications. The tiny fibers, thousands of times thinner than a human hair, are invisible, but can be inhaled when they become airborne. Once in the body, there is a danger that they will become lodged in soft tissues, in particular in the lungs and the lining around the lungs. There, they cause changes to lung tissue that can eventually result in lung cancer and mesothelioma, a rare cancer that is currently diagnosed in about 6,000 people per year. Because of the health hazard, federal law requires that any work to remove or otherwise disturb asbestos containing materials must be done by professional who are trained and licensed to remove it safely. Closing down the building is a safety precaution to avoid exposing any of the Y’s 4,000 members to the risks of airborne asbestos. YMCA administrators said that asbestos air quality tests carried out immediately after the asbestos was discovered showed that there was no heightened level of asbestos in the air, so members who use the building are safe to continue doing so. Air quality tests will also be done after completion of the work to ensure that it is safe to reopen to the public. It is not unusual for asbestos to be found in older buildings like the YMCA building on Church Street. The EPA estimates that there are over 700,000 public buildings across the U.S. that were built with asbestos containing materials. Often, the asbestos containing materials are only discovered during renovations or when a building is about to be demolished. In either case, federal law requires that asbestos be managed or abated by professional contractors. The cost of removal can sometimes equal the cost of the rest of demolition or renovation, though it is sometimes covered by insurance. (Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News)