Posted on 12/24/2014 5:49:49 PM PST by Libloather
GREENSBORO — City employees and contractors may have been exposed to asbestos while working toward the demolition of War Memorial Auditorium.
**SNIP**
Brandon Hill, a construction project manager with the city, described the problem in an email on Oct. 13, after which work was halted and the building was shut down.
“What we found was the worst case scenario of what we tried to warn staff about in August,” Hill wrote. “By allowing the scrappers and everyone else to come into the building before it was abated has caused a rather large issue.”
“No one should be allowed in the building from this point on,” Hill wrote. “Anyone working in the building should be removed. The doors are to be covered with plywood and taped. No one should enter the building.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news-record.com ...
And then turned it into a 300-space, 'premium' parking lot
Yes, touching a single asbestos fiber is just as deadly as touching a virus-laden Ebola cadaver in Sierra Leone. Everybody knows that.
How much do those parking spots cost? In Houston they want to tear down the Astrodome (at a cost of tens of millions) and turn the space into surface grade (uncovered) parking. Those projected parking spots will cost approximately $15,000 each to create. It'll take a long time at $10 a car to pay that off (roughly 14 years if they can sell out the parking lot every weekend all year long for every one of those years).
You need to use “new math (common core)”
$10 x 14 years, minus 10 and minus 4 = 10 divided by zero = infinity.
infinity x tax dollars = a gillion mission tax dollars.
So, it is worth it.
Quit beefing.
When I used to work on vehicle brakes (this was back in the 70s) it was well understood by engineers that asbestos was primarily a problem for smokers. The combination of the two had a very significant “negative synergy”. This meant that that a person who smoked cigarettes and inhaled asbestos on a regular basis was at extremely high risk of lung disease.
This was primarily learned from workers in the WW2 era where many people smoked and used asbestos in the production of war materiel.
If you were a non-smoker, there was little risk. 40+ years later I still believe it.
Pipefitters working in the bowels of ships got a lot of asbestos lung damage. It was the heavy concentrations from insulation in very confined spaces that did the most damage. The occasional exposure has zero effect.
“If you were a non-smoker, there was little risk. 40+ years later I still believe it.”
Agree...asbestos is something that you’d rather not inhale every day - but no, exposure to it on a fleeting basis is not going to hurt ANYONE, and the fact that they report it like a nuclear accident shows the level of PARANOIA in today’s media, and, unfortunately, today’s society at large.
Are there still any occupants of the Astro Dome? I know neither the MLB or NFL teams play there anymore.
Is it used at all or just sitting there? How much is maintenance cost just to keep it from falling down on its own?
BTW. There used to be a convention center on the same site. I think they called it the Astro Arena. Is that still there?
The Astrohall and Astroarena were torn down (and replaced with similar structures).
There is little maintainence on the Dome (even though it had been contractually obligated for the team owner).
Eventually there was a water leak that did damage.
It’s criminal that those who have been entrusted with upkeep shirked their responsibility and that the city has sat idle (because deep down those in charge want it gone).
It’s not as simple as just imploding it and hauling the parts away. It’s a sunken building (deep into the ground).
Judge Ed Emmett was on the ‘save the dome’ ballot committee but I’ve never had the feeling that he is really supportive of it. Now he’s pushing for a plan to gut it and turn it into a public/private for profit park (like Discovery Green downtown) in competition with the 90 year old Miller Outdoor Theater (just up the road from the Dome, and the seating/stage is not that old, they date to the 60s).
This hysteria over incidental asbestos exposure is one of the most absurd things up with which we must put.
Yes, you should not work fourteen shifts a week spraying chrysolite asbestos out of a hose onto pipes and hull plates without a mask, for four years.
THAT is a problem.
Entering a building (for example, a school) with asbestos-wrapped pipes inside of walls is perfectly safe.
I once owned a house that turned out to have asbestos in it...which made it difficult to sell.
I did alot of research at that time - and gained an understanding that for a non smoker there really is no danger.
the paranoia doesn’t continue when it came to using ethyl mercury as a preservative in immunizations.
But as far as smoking and contact with asbestos, the only time I smoke is when I see the buffoon in chief, walk into a resturant where CNBC is the “news “ station they choose to play, or read where my elected officials have voted the party line.
The MSM are part of the liberal establishment, and one of the big Democrat sources of campaign funds are tort lawyers.
Asbestos lawsuits are a big money maker for tort lawyers, thus the push to demonize asbestos in the media, and cultivate business, and influence jurors.
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