Asbestos cleanup begins at Maple Street site

Spokane County began asbestos mitigation Thursday at the site of an old Zonolite insulation factory north of the Maple Street Bridge.

Asbestos on the property at 1318 N. Maple St., now owned by the county roads department, is from Libby, Mont., a town with an epidemic of lung disease from the mining and processing of vermiculite ore.

“The mitigation we agreed upon is that we do not disturb the soil any more than necessary,” said Bob Brueggeman, Spokane county engineer. “To cap it with asphalt parking lot was the preferred alternative.”

The county purchased the 2-acre site several years ago and has been using it to store county road and painting equipment.

For decades, the ore from Libby was turned into Zonolite insulation at dozens of “expansion factories,” including the Vermiculite Northwest plant on North Maple. Furnaces inside the plant were used to “puff up” the ore for use as insulation.

W.R. Grace & Co., owners of the Libby mine, bought the Spokane factory in 1966. Grace closed the plant in 1973 after a whistleblower tipped state inspectors to high asbestos levels inside, and the company refused to comply with a state order to clean it up.

In 2004, a report from the Environmental Protection Agency found the site posed a potential health hazard for workers involved in future excavation.

When measuring the soil, the EPA found that when disturbed, tiny asbestos fibers were released. If inhaled, the fibers can cause asbestosis and mesothelioma, a rare and fatal cancer of the lung lining.

County engineers said they worked closely with the Department of Ecology and Spokane County Air Pollution and Control Authority to come up with a cleanup plan.

A firm hired by the county will also be monitoring air quality during the work, said Chad Coles, Spokane County engineer.

“The contractor that’s doing the work is also required to monitor, and they have set up a clean room and are taking great care to protect our workers and the folks around there,” said Coles.

The factory buildings were torn down long ago, and all that’s remained are some concrete foundations, which the county is tearing up, Coles said.