Asbestos removal completed

The collapsed buildings on South Marion Avenue in Washington are one step closure to demolition. Environmental Management Services of Iowa (EMSI) Inc. began removing asbestos from the three buildings ? 207, 209 and 211 S. Marion Ave. ? Tuesday and finished Thursday evening. The city council will hold a public hearing on the demolition of the buildings during its meeting Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the former library.

Mark Hogan, owner and president of EMSI, said most of the asbestos was in the duct work and the furnaces. He said that when the roof collapsed, someone removed most of the fallen roof and then covered what remained to prevent it from rotting the floor.  

?We had to take the rubber and everything on the floor,? Hogan said. ?We bagged all the floor tile under the rubber. You couldn?t clean it off because it was stuck to the tile.?

Hogan said that if the asbestos can easily become airborne, his employees don a suit respirator, wet the material and put it in a lined dumpster.

?If the building has already burned down, then you use an excavator and take all the material to a landfill,? Hogan said.

Hogan said that since his employees knew the building was going to be demolished, they removed all the duct work rather than try to scrape the asbestos from it by hand. Hogan said he talked to the dentist?s office next door about how the asbestos removal would proceed in such a way as to minimize the spread of asbestos particles. According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, inhaling asbestos particles can lead to lung cancer and other respiratory disorders.

?We had the basements sealed when we removed the asbestos,? he said. ?We wetted the material and took all the duct work out. That way, there is less disturbance to the material, which means it?s less likely to become airborne.?

He said handling the asbestos was not even the most unpleasant part of the job.

?The pigeon droppings were way nastier than the asbestos,? he said. ?We sprayed three gallons of bleach in there before we went in.?

The Iowa Assessor?s Office?s Web site indicates that the 207 building dates to 1900. Hogan said that was probably not when the asbestos was put in the building.

?The furnace was probably put in during the ?20s or ?30s, which is when we saw a rise in the use of asbestos,? he said. ?It?s use exploded in the mid- to late- ?20s and it stayed pretty constant for the next 50 years.?

Hogan said that it seems as though property owners are reluctant to remove asbestos until they are ready to tear the building down.

?That?s when they realize they have to do with asbestos abatement,? he said. ?A lot of times, asbestos is used in the flooring or in pipe insulation, so the owners are not even aware of it until someone comes to remodel. Usually, it becomes a factor when the building comes to the end of its life cycle. Sometimes, hospitals or schools, which undergo constant remodeling, have to remove the floor tile or everything in the boiler room because it has been contaminated by asbestos.?

Hogan said the asbestos was transported to the Semco Sanitary Landfill in Richland.

In early October, city engineer Rob McDonald said he would like to have the buildings demolished by mid-December.

The city purchased the buildings from Alfonso and Julia Raymundo in the fall of 2009. In 2006, the Raymundos hired a company called Apex Construction to remodel their store and expand it from 207 S. Marion to 209 as well, removing the wall in between the two buildings. That October, the second floor of the building collapsed during construction. No one was injured in the collapse, although the Raymundos were forced to relocate their business to Second Street.