Harrisburg School District Properly Handles Asbestos Abatement Prior to High School Demolition
Crews are working through the final stage of asbestos abatement at the former William Penn High School building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as the school district prepares to bring the structure this month.
Harrisburg School District officials confirmed that internal asbestos removal has been completed. External removal is still in progress and is expected to wrap up by mid-August. That outside work centers on caulk and glazing compounds around many of the building’s windows, a material that was commonly manufactured with asbestos for decades because it held up well against heat, weather, and time.
According to the district, certified abatement professionals are handling the removal by taking out entire window units and containing the asbestos in plastic rather than scraping or cutting the material in place. That approach is standard practice for friable and potentially friable materials, because disturbing them on site is what sends microscopic fibers into the air. The district said it hired an outside asbestos consultant to perform regular air monitoring during the project, with the stated goal of protecting both the abatement workers and the surrounding neighborhood.
Between June 2 and July 10, the consultant conducted 136 asbestos air sampling tests. The district reported that none of those samples showed asbestos levels above the federal permissible exposure limit set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter of air averaged over an eight-hour shift.
The OSHA permissible exposure limit is a workplace enforcement threshold. Federal health agencies, including the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, have long taken the position that no level of asbestos exposure has been shown to be risk free. Staying under the limit lowers risk. It does not erase it.
Federal rules under the Clean Air Act require regulated asbestos containing material to be identified and removed before a building is knocked down, precisely because demolition turns intact material into airborne dust in a matter of seconds. Notification requirements, wetting procedures, and proper disposal of asbestos waste all apply.
Schools built or renovated before the early 1980s frequently contain asbestos in floor tiles, pipe and boiler insulation, ceiling material, roofing, wallboard joint compound, and window caulk and glazing. Congress recognized the scale of the problem in 1986 with the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, which required school districts across the country to inspect their buildings, maintain management plans, and reinspect on a set schedule.
The people who carried the highest exposure risk in these buildings were rarely students. They were custodians, boiler operators, maintenance staff, and the tradespeople who cut, sanded, and patched around asbestos materials year after year without protective equipment or any warning about what they were working with. Later, demolition and renovation crews took on that same exposure.
Diseases tied to asbestos, including mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis, generally take 20 to 50 years to appear after the first exposure. A maintenance worker who spent the 1970s replacing pipe insulation in a Harrisburg school building may only now be receiving a diagnosis.
Goldberg, Persky & White have represented workers and families in asbestos cases for decades, including school employees, tradespeople, and construction workers exposed on the job. If you or someone in your family worked around asbestos containing materials in a Pennsylvania school or public building and has been diagnosed with mesothelioma or another asbestos related illness, our team can review your work history and explain your options. There is no cost to speak with us.
