Lorraine apartment owners to pay for asbestos cleanup, air monitoring

GLOUCESTER, Mass. - The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection will bill the owners of the Lorraine Apartments for environmental monitoring in addition to making the building owners responsible for asbestos cleanup at the site of the December 15 fire. That fire killed one person, 70 year old Robert Taylor. Taylor’s body has yet to be recovered from the ruins. Recovery efforts have been postponed by the weather, the holidays and most recently, by the discovery of asbestos in the ruins. That discovery has necessitated safety precautions for all recovery workers to protect them from the dangers of airborne asbestos dust. Asbestos is a known carcinogen that causes a number of different cancers, including the relatively rare cancer, mesothelioma. Mesothelioma most often affects the lining between the lungs and the chest wall, but may also affect the lining of the heart chamber or the linings around the abdominal organs. City officials say that the owners of the Lorraine Apartments, demolished in a December 15 fire, will have to pay for removal of the asbestos containing ruins from the site. After fire officials noticed visible signs of asbestos in the rubble of the gutted apartment building and called upon the state Department of Environmental Protection for testing. When the tests proved positive, the DEP sent a notice of responsibility to the buiding’s owners. That notice requires that 80 Middle St. LLC of Lynnfield hire a licensed asbestos contractor to develop an abatement plan for removing asbestos from the site without releasing the asbestos fibers into the air. A similar situation in New Haven has raised concerns that firefighters there may have been exposed to asbestos, but a DEP spokesman in the Gloucester case says that there is no concern about risk to firefighters or neighboring homes. According to Joe Ferson, the asbestos was soaked with water when the fire was fought, preventing it from becoming airborne. Airborne asbestos fibers have been proven to cause a number of illnesses, including the rare cancer, mesothelioma, which affects the lining of the lungs, or more rarely, of the abdomen or heart. In addition to paying for the removal of asbestos from the destroyed building, owners Gary Raso and Daniel Gattineri will also be expected to reimburse the DEP for air quality monitoring to ensure that it remains safe. However, says Ferson, “We’ll worry about cost recovery at a future date.” Meanwhile, a recovery team carefully sifts through the rubble looking for the remains of Robert Taylor and for evidence of the origin of the fire. They are using water suppression to keep the asbestos wet, lessening the chance of rising a dust that contains asbestos fibers. The handling of asbestos is one of the major factors slowing and complicating the recovery effort. Neighboring public buildings, the YMCA and the Sawyer Free Library, have had their air quality tested to be sure that the air quality was safe. Both say that the tests showed their air is clean. (Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News)