Clapper, Patti, Schweizer and Mason

The St. Louis Park school system took an unexpected $100,000 hit to the budget earlier this month because of potential asbestos exposure in two of their schools in February.

The school board closed down the high school and the junior high school temporary due to asbestos in the floor tiles.  School officials had known about the asbestos problem for years and were actively complying with the EPA’s Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) by monitoring the asbestos and doing what they could to prevent exposing staff and students to the potentially hazardous materials.  In fact, the school spends $4,000 every summer to lay several coats of wax on the flooring in order to make it safe.

Asbestos containing materials, when fully encapsulated, intact or in good condition, do not pose a threat.  As part of a school asbestos management plan, officials can decide not to remove but instead to make sure there is no chance of asbestos becoming airborne by keeping the contaminated materials completely enclosed, encapsulated or covered over, as complete removal can be costly.

However, several of the staff members became concerned that the asbestos floor tiles may have become damaged after years of wear and tear, especially with the salt and sand being tracked in during the winter months.

The school closed for two days while qualified asbestos crews came into the school and examine the air quality and the integrity of the floor tiles. 

Sandy Salin, the board’s Business Services Director, authorized the Brooklyn Park-based Institute for Environmental Assessment (IEA) and White Bear Lake-based Mavo Systems to come to the school with testing equipment and instruct staff on how best to seal the tiles so that the asbestos could not escape.  The cost for remediation service came to $102 thousand which did not include $1,843 spent on supplies and overtime paid to staff members who had been instructed to wax the flooring twice as a precaution against airborne asbestos.

The school faces an even bigger bite to the budget later this year when they plan to remove and replace asbestos tiles in roughly 60 of the classrooms throughout the school district.  The district consists of:

• Aquilla Elementary
• Peter Hobart Elementary
• Susan Lindgren Elementary
• the aforementioned junior high school
• and the high school

Many schools built before the eighties contain asbestos in at least some of their building materials and the cost of maintaining them to meet air quality requirements can be daunting.  However, removing and replacing the materials can be even costlier as professional contractors schooled in the proper handling and disposal of hazardous asbestos materials must be employed to do the work. 

The St. Louis Park school board is relying on funding from a bond passed to help offset the tremendous financial burden of dealing with asbestos materials.