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2002 National Asbestos Meeting

March 4, 2002

Speaker: Dr. William Sanders, Director, OPPT, U.S. EPA

Introduction

I want to thank the State of Maryland, our hosts, and congratulations to all of you on this meeting, the fourth in a series of annual meetings held as a result of State interest and organized mainly by the States themselves.
In most cases, the States and local governments are and have been on the front lines of the battle to control asbestos exposures.
An overwhelming number of States administer their own asbestos training and accreditation programs, and many have been delegated the asbestos NESHAP program under the Clean Air Act.
The States are often much better than the Federal government at controlling local impacts of pollution, such as asbestos releases, and responding to community concerns.
The States have also led the way in creating partnership opportunities. A number of State groups have been formed to address common asbestos issues. I would like to recognize the Consortium of NorthEast States and Tribes (CONEST), which includes the States in our Regions I and II, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Environmental Consortium (MAREC), including our Region III States, the Southeastern States Asbestos Conference (SESAC), including our Region IV States, and the newest group, the Mid-West Regional Environmental Consortium (MWREC), covering our Region V States.
I also realize that these groups are not the only way to communicate between States and States usually have informal ways of sharing asbestos information with other States.
I believe that EPA's primary role in the asbestos area should be to assist and support state asbestos control programs on technical, scientific, and legal issues.

Recent Challenges

The asbestos programs at EPA are some of our oldest. Asbestos regulation under the Clean Air Act began in the early 1970's and the TSCA asbestos program wasn't far behind, with our ANPRM on asbestos products in 1979 and our 1982 Asbestos-in-schools rule.
However, during the past few years, Federal and State agencies have had to deal with some of the greatest asbestos challenges they have ever faced.
The disaster at the World Trade Center has been one of these challenges. Clearly, no one, including EPA, was prepared for a building collapse on such a scale. The available guidance on how to respond to such a disaster was not adequate, yet an immediate response was called for.
State and local government offices, along with regional offices of the EPA, OSHA, and other Federal agencies began very quickly to cope. On the afternoon of September 11^th, EPA's Region II began taking air samples downwind of the fire at the WTC and bulk samples of the dust that had accumulated in the vicinity.
Communications between EPA HQ offices and the Region II office were very difficult in the first few days after the disaster, yet a pollutant monitoring plan had to be developed and public statements issued about the environmental effects of the WTC collapse and fire.
Since that time, a number of complex technical issues have arisen regarding asbestos sampling and analytical methods, and proper interpretation of the results. What kinds of air samples should have been taken? What protocols should have been used? Should bulk samples have been taken, or would dust samples have been more appropriate? How should dust sample results be interpreted, given that EPA does not have standards or recommendations on asbestos levels in dust? You will be hearing more about these issues during a panel discussion tomorrow afternoon.
Other issues have been raised about the proper guidance to the owners and residents of buildings near the WTC on decontaminating apartments and offices.
The gross asbestos contamination in Libby has presented another difficult challenge for EPA, other Federal agencies, and the State of Montana.
As a result of the concentrated vermiculite mining and processing activities in Libby, Libby residents have been exposed to asbestos from a great many sources, including yard and garden soil, driveway material, vermiculite waste piles, indoor dust, and, potentially, the vermiculite insulation in their homes.
EPA has been struggling with how to evaluate the increased risk posed by these multiple exposure pathways and how to best control future asbestos exposures for the residents of Libby.
For example, Libby residents have expressed a strong desire to have vermiculite attic insulation removed from their homes as part of the cleanup effort. EPA sympathizes with these residents, who have suffered a great deal from historical asbestos exposures. However, removal of this insulation appears to be contrary to over 20 years of EPA recommendations that asbestos-containing material be left undisturbed and managed in place wherever possible.
EPA has also been concerned with the broader implications of asbestos contamination in vermiculite. We have completed a horticultural vermiculite study, and are in the process of studying potential exposures from vermiculite attic insulation. You will hear more about these studies from Tom Simons of my office tomorrow morning.
Although Libby and the World Trade Center collapse have and will continue to present unusual challenges for all of us, the States face ongoing difficulties in the administration of asbestos training and accreditation programs.
For example, a number of States continue to struggle with the applicability of asbestos regulations to resilient floor covering products, because these products do not fit neatly into the categories of friable and non-friable asbestos-containing building materials. This topic usually generates enough interest to merit discussion at these annual meetings. This year's panel discussion is scheduled for this afternoon.
Another ongoing problem faced by the States is that of fraudulent accreditation certificates. F & M Environmental in Virginia is the latest in a series of high profile cases involving the sale of accreditation certificates without providing the associated training.

The Future

The EPA and the State environmental and licensing agencies have much in common. One operating characteristic we all share is a limit to the funds available for our work. None of us have the luxury of an unlimited budget, and we all have to continually figure out how to do more with less. Even when our budgets are increased, they do not grow as quickly as our responsibilities.
We collectively have been working on reducing asbestos exposures for more than thirty years. Yet recent events have shown us that asbestos exposure issues haven't gone away. New problems have arisen, while we continue to face the same problems with poorly-performed asbestos abatement jobs and untrained workers that we have faced for many years.
The recent past has made it very clear to us in OPPT at EPA that we must maintain a core group of knowledgeable asbestos staff no matter how many new responsibilities we are given.
In addition, to help my office prioritize asbestos program activities, we will be making a systematic effort to get input from our stakeholders on what the TSCA asbestos program should concentrate on.
This goal of this project is not to solve existing technical and legal issues, such as those raised by Libby and the World Trade Center, but to decide which ones, if any, that EPA should be involved in addressing and the best approach to resolving them.
Our working name for this effort has been the "Blue Ribbon Panel on Asbestos," but we have moved away from the idea of a traditional panel. A contractor has been selected and you will hear more about this project during a brief presentation tomorrow morning.
Thank you for your time this morning. I would be happy to take your questions.

Asbestos Agenda