Posts Tagged arizona

Fined nearly $30,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency last week, three charter schools in Arizona were found guilty of not conducing initial asbestos inspections or developing an asbestos management plan.

The Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) requires regular inspection of U.S. schools. The act is a means of regulating, inspecting, cataloging and handling asbestos in all U.S. schools, and was put into law in 1986 to ensure the safety of public buildings from the dangers of asbestos exposure and that any asbestos material pre-existing is monitored and undamaged by renovations, age, or other circumstance.

The worst offender – Phoenix’s Cave Creek High School – failed to conduct ongoing inspections of its documented 12,580 square feet of asbestos material.

As long as asbestos is intact and not broken or exposed, the EPA considers the material safe. However, if asbestos products have been disturbed or tampered with, the risk of asbestos exposure increases exponentially. This highly increases the chances of inhalation, indirectly leading the mesothelioma or other asbestos-related diseases like asbestosis and lung cancer.

Read the rest of this entry »