Asbestos Warnings Near Public Place: Too Little, Too Late?
While Councilman Bill de Blasio’s office says it distributed more than 300 fliers informing people that asbestos was being removed at a warehouse that’ll be demolished in order to make way for the large Public Place development, some nearby residents say they were in the dark about the potentially hazardous procedure. “I live at 204…
While Councilman Bill de Blasio’s office says it distributed more than 300 fliers informing people that asbestos was being removed at a warehouse that’ll be demolished in order to make way for the large Public Place development, some nearby residents say they were in the dark about the potentially hazardous procedure. “I live at 204 Huntington Street, the apartment complex directly opposite the warehouse and I never received anything in the mail nor was anything posted on our building’s board (we have A LOT of kids in our building and had a notice been sent or left, I or one of the many parents in the building would have posted it immediately both in the building and on our parents’ Yahoo board),” one resident told us yesterday. “This warehouse is directly across the street from a large public park yet there are no signs in the park warning parents about what is going on.” A spokesperson for Councilman de Blasio’s office said yesterday that asbestos removal at the warehouse “is done,” and that “we spoke to the air quality monitoring company, and no asbestos entered the air in or around the site.” Gowanus Lounge covered some neighbors’ unease over lack of notification about the removal, which was occurring last week. A person who is a member of Community Board 6’s Environment and Public Safety Committe wrote the following to GL: “Last week they removed 125,000 square feet of asbestos contaminated roofing in the open air with no DOB permits and no community awareness. As a nearby resident with a small child I feel at risk.”
Confusion Over Public Place Asbestos Removal [Gowanus Lounge] GMAP
Bxgirl, if you ‘communicate’ to the whole hood that there’s gonna be an asbestos removal project, which is really just a roofing removal, is the hood gonna say thank you for the info? No, the hood is gonna whine and cry about it’s unsafe and ‘little bodies and lungs’. I like you, don’t mean to be snarky, but none of your posts have addressed the technical issues of asbestos removal on this job. You haven’t expressed your take on the job, only your opinion that better communication makes a better project. And in this case, I disagree.
Not as lacking as you like to think, denton and by the way that was an unnecessarily snarky remark. I happen to know much more than you think about the subject, and just because I have a different take on it doesn’t make me stupid or ignorant. And fyi I wasn’t talking about an education, I was talking about communication so people don’t feel in the dark about what’s going on around them. Communication- obviously somethin you and polemicist are sorely lacking adequate skills in.
no, I don’t think if everyone would have been notified if across from Carroll Park. The more notification (which is not required nor specified how notification would work) the more the hysterical kneejerk self-entitled react to things they know too little about but can grab headlines and get their local politicians to pander to them and certainly get all the blogs to act like local news or NYPost and create something out of nothing.
(see all the hoopla about the probation office last week).
Hey BookChick:
There’s a moniker I like. Are you on librarything? I’m a bookie , on LT under this same name.
If DeBlasio is a liar, that’s something else.
But can we clarify the numbers? What was removed was 125,000 sft of asphalt roofing material, which contained some encapsulated asbestos component. Typically less than 1% by weight. There was not 125,000 sft of _asbestos_.
I live across the street from this place and it’s not a matter of “NIMBY B.S.” considering my “backyard” is an industrial wasteland. My issue is with De Blasio’s office claiming they notified everyone in the area about what was going on. That’s where I call B.S. Since it’s across the street from a park and next door to a daycare center, the community should be notified when 125,000 square feet of asbestos is being removed (nope, not the same as taking it out of a homeowner’s basement or roof). If this occurred near Carroll Park, you can bet De Blasio’s office would have made sure everyone was notified. If not, there would have been riots in the street.
First, this was reported on curbed a few days ago, and the notice WAS posted. Curbed showed the photo of the notice.
WillBklyn is the closest to the truth, asbestos in roofing material is pretty harmless, the correct term is ‘encapsulated’ by the surrounding material.
bxgirl, sorry to disagree with you here, the neighbors have no idea what the ‘facts’ are because knowing them requires an education in asbestos. You and Noklilissa are sorely lacking in it. Multiply this by the whole community and it’s just a waste of time. Not trying to be insulting, merely stating the obvious.
To add what Polemicist has said correctly, over 90% of asbestos fatalities are people who have smoked. The average person can breathe huge amounts of asbestos, especially Canadian white chrysotile asbestos, which is probably what was used here. altho P, you’re wrong about only asbestos workers getting sick; exposure to large amounts of asbestos in industries like construction, shipbuilding, and insulating has sickened many–smokers, usually.
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that outcrops in several parts of the world, notably Canada and South Africa. There is asbestos in the air everywhere from these and man-made sources.
There may be few dozen people in NYC who know more about asbestos than I do, then again, there may not be. I owned a company that sold legal and safe asbestos-containing products, and was on the list of companies routinely sued by asbestos ‘victims’. I’ve testified at more than one deposition on the issue.
Am I missing something?
As long as the asbestos abatement was done legally and in the right manner (air testing, abatement firm, etc.), what’s the big deal?
Did they try to do a fly-by-night job or something?
As long as they do it the right way, what’s the beef?
I removed asbestos from my basement and had a proper contactor from an abatement firm, air testing and sampling service, ACP-5, etc.
If it’s being done the right way, excuse me for saying, but this is NIMBY B.S.
I found myself in a similar dither a few years ago when I saw the same notice on the building right next to mine – ASBESTOS removal? SCARY. Well, removing asbestos roofing is actually not that scary. It really doesn’t get into the air – the asbestos is pretty well stuck inside the roofing -you’d have to throw it in a wood chipper or something to get it in the air. The people that remove it are licensed and the fact that the notice is posted (probably) means that they’ve hired a professional to remove it.
There is a daycare center kitty corner to the site. The children often play outside. Some of these babies are only three months old. A little warning and I’m sure some of the kids might have stayed inside.