Document N221qR6Lkpp8Ep89x27kvrmeR

Vsbestos containme controversial alternative the eyes of Edmund A. Drazga, astos' 40-year reign as a prevalent Iding material was nothing less than e worst industrial accident since the ustrial revolution." That may he so. Drazga. unlike victims of asbestos alation. certainly hasn't suffered m it. He's the president of KRC Re .rch (Moorestown. N. J.). one of a mber of firms doing a brisk business .sbestos containment--also called ensulation--coatings. 'heir potential market is huge. An mated 7$ billion sq ft of asbestos alation was installed in the U. S. be en 1942 and 1972. While 9<r; of all Idings put up before 1974 contain ne asbestos, in only 5of these Idings has the asbestos either been .lived or otherwise rendered harm to people. Drazga estimates that treatment or removal of asbestos in the other 95' - represents a market ihe vicinity of $5 billion. 0 tar. schools have been the biggest turners for encapsulation, and they ount for about half the potential rket. Drazga believes. The Environntal Protection Agency (FT'Ai cur tly requires school districts to locate 1 analyze asbestos in school build.-. to monitor asbestos levels and to ify parents and school employees of "iNure. Moreover, the agency is ghing demands from the Service pluyees International I'nion (SEIl'l it it require schools to develop active asbestos abatement programs. To gath er more information about abatement options for schools, EPA is holding hear ings in three cities this month. But while schools have gotten the li on's share of regulators' concern, many encapsulation companies say that com mercial buildings may prove to be an equally lucrative market. "It's a quiet issue in the private sector right now," Critics of containment say it is a stopgap measure that can pose dangers of its own observes Gerald Brittendall, executive vice-president of VLS Protective Coat ings (Des Plaines. 111.). But he says, "You're going to see an explosion." In fact, some companies say that pri vate-sector work has taken off already. Encapsulation is ``being used every where," says Eugene J. Secor, product manager for H. B. Fuller's Foster Div., a major supplier of containment coat ings. Secor says that sales in 1983 were double those of 1982 and that schools accounted for only GO'' of sales. There are two possible en capsulation routes: bridging and penetration. Bridging employs coatings that are at least 40"' solid by weight to form a film on a surface that contains asbestos. Foster, for _____ Ters a 637r-solid bridging en- capsulant formulated around a vinyli- dene chloride monomer. Pentagon Plas tics (West Palm Beach, Fla.) also is selling a bridging material, called Deca- dex Firecheck. Penetrating encapsulants soak into the asbestos-containing material, leav ing almost no film. Of thinner consis tency than bridging coatings, the pene trating variety is usually less than 20'' solids content by weight. Some compa nies, including Foster and American Coatings (Niles, 111.), offer both types of containment coatings. Critics. Both forms of containment re main controversial. They are "a tempo rary solution, something to buy time with," declares Dwight E. Brown, the former coordinator of EPA's Region 4 asbestos program, who is now president of his own consulting firm, Asbestos Hazard Program Research (Marietta. Ga.). Officials of the SEIU also are pushing for removal rather than con tainment, and even EPA officials lean toward removal as the method of pref erence. "There is one thing about [re moval]," says EPA toxics specialist Ed ward Klein. "Once you've got asbestos out of a building, it's gone." Still, encapsulation has a number of practical considerations in its favor. Dan Flaherty, a safety official with the estos containment can be taster than removal, bul it can prevent a building i breathing, and removal is still required before the building is demolished. ALCOA0000009072 o Los Angeles Unified School District-- which maintains-13,000 buildings at 800 sites--notes that removal has been the preferred course for Los Angeles schools. "But that's not always possible, so we encapsulate a lot." he says. "You can encapsulate a good-sized area in a week or so. but removal of that area would take 60 days." Cost and time comparisons for the two methods vary, depending on who's doing the talking. William B. Smith, president of Masterclean of North Caro lina (Winston-Salem), a contracting firm that specializes in asbestos abatement, says his firm charges roughly $3/sq ft for removal, depending on the condition While 90% of aii pre-1974 buildings contain asbestos, 95% of them are untouched and depth of the asbestos, compared with S2.50-2.75/sq ft for encapsulation. If "you do it properly." he says, remov al does not take any longer than con tainment. VLS's Brittendall. meanwhile, claims that his firm can treat a square foot of asbestos-containing substrate for S1.60-2.1H). He puts the cost of re moval at S2.20-10.00'sq ft. But ultimately, all asbestos must be removed before a building is demol ished. And. says an EPA guide to the handling of asbestos in buildings, en capsulation can make that removal pro cess more difficult. "Long-term costs [of encapsulating] may be higher than removal." EPA warns. From a technical stand|H>int. removal and encapsulation each have pros and cons. On the plus side for encapsulation is the fact that contained asbestos re mains fireproof, while asbestos that is removed has to be replaced by mineral wool or cellulose for fireproofing. Breathing. But there is a serious physical drawback to encapsulation that can leave building owners with an even worse asbestos exposure problem than the one they started with. Many of the containment products on the market ef fectively destroy a building's breathabilitv. When a building "breathes." it en ables ambient moisture to seep through walls and ceilings, and evaporate or dis perse harmlessly. After encapsulation, water that is trapped between a roof and a lowered ceiling can accumulate and weaken the building's structure. Accumulated water also can back up and cause Hooding. Any weakening of the building's structure can cause a re lease of airborne asbestos fibers. It is not a hypothetical danger. Ian Stewart, vice-president of the National Asbestos Council and vice-president of McCrone Environmental Services (Chi cago), a firm that quantifies asbestos content in buildings and monitors air borne asbestos during abatement pro grams, says that "there have been quite a few cases [of flooding due to contain ment procedures] recently." The dangers of trapped moisture do not end with structural damage to buildings. If there is water damage to the asbestos itself, fibers are more like ly to be released into the air, increasing the chance of people inhaling them and suffering lung problems. In fact, some asbestos experts say it is unwise to use encapsulation in a heavily trafficked part of a building, particularly if the asbestos is crumbling or deteriorating in any way. Consultant Brown recalls seeing a high school near Macon, Ga., where officials had sprayed a contain ment coating on trusses on the basket ball court. When encapsulation began, he says, the asbestos was friable--that is. crumbly--and "now when the bas ketball hits it the stuff just explodes, and they don't know where to push the broom." On record. Some of the contraindica tions to encapsulation already are a matter of public record. In 1979. Battelle Columbus Laboratories began, at EPA's request, an evaluation of asbes tos encapsulation products. That study, completed in 1982. concludes that encap sulation is not suitable when there has been any damage to the substrate, nor in cases where the asbestos shows signs of disintegrating on its own. Despite such caveats, the Battelle study has turned out to be a wonderful promotion tool for encapsulation prod ucts. Manufacturers of containment coatings report that as early as 1979-- when Battelle provided EPA with a pre liminary list of products it had deemed usable for containment--building own ers and contractors who were anxious to do something about the asbestos in their walls, ceilings and pipes started calling with inquiries. Such calls are what brought Ameri can Coatings, for one, into the contain ment market. For years, the firm has made fire-retardant coatings for electri cal wiring. After Battelles preliminary findings were released, these coatings suddenly had a new market--one that the company has since wooed with prod ucts developed especially for encapsula tion purposes. But not all firms have welcomed the interest spurred by the Battelle report l'. S. Mineral (SUnho)>e, N.J.) makes Cafco Bond Sea), a fireproofing sealant that was among 11 products rated satis factory in Battelle s final report to EPa. But U. S. Mineral "doesn't recommend the product for that particular pur pose," says marketing manager Richard L. Felipe. In fact, he say.-,, the firm is "almost disclaiming" Cafco for that use. Apparently mindful of the vast vol ume of legal claims filed against asbes tos producers, Felipe says that his com- j pany is anxious to avoid any liability that encapsulation sales might bring I "EPA has not seen fit to approve any one" of the products on Battelle s "sap' isfactory" list, Felipe notes. He says hit firm might pursue the encapsulation' Schools are half the market, but now encapsulators predict a private-sector `explosion' market "if the EPA would put some j kind of blessing on it." Since EPA, as 13 matter of policy, does not endorse prod-1 ucts, it is unlikely that will happen. \The question of possible liability; weighs heavily on even those companies that have chosen to pursue encapsul*-] tion sales. Most don't make many prom. I ises. Foster doesn't train contractors to I use its products, because the company! doesn't want to "become liable for then expertise," Secor says "There are many things that |ean] go wrong," (gj adds. "We don't offer guarantees." Guarantee. By contrast. Vlji--p^i haps uniquely--offers a lo-year guaraa-i tee and a 20-year warranty on its Fiber- j gel encapsulation process. For omj thing, VLS claims that Fibergel does not] compromise a building's breathabiliry 3 For another, VI-a only sells its coatings] in applied form, giving it a bigger meal sure of control over the process. The! company either does the encapsulate j work itself or authorizes VLS-tramedj distributors to use Fibergel in their o*| j encapsulation projects. That is an unusual arrangement however. More typically, potential usemJ can get hold of encapsulation coatinaj and use them as they wish. Safety o$.J cial Flaherty notes that maintenajul workers in the Los Angeles school sj*l tern "carry a small bottle of it them" and use the coatings when i make other repairs. Even when powers that be opt for removal, notes, maintenance workers apply encapsulants before new fireproofing'3 installed, just in case. "We use it lou^ ways," he says. And. he predia "We're going to use thousar^is thousands of gallons of it." 34 Chemical Week/June 20. 1904 ALCOA0000009073