The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has halted Posen Construction’s huge Summerlin overpass construction project based on suspicions that the firm is using an illegal amount of asbestos products in their materials. Areas of the new road in Lee County have been sectioned off with yellow caution tape while members of the FDEP’s crew meticulously inspect portions of the road and the caches of construction materials being used. The FDEP was alerted to the possibility of excessive asbestos use after a large amount of pipes and pipe segments, allegedly made from asbestos, were witnessed being used as filler material in the new road.
Asbestos related diseases have been in the public eye for some time now, and yet many states in the United States continue to encounter asbestos contamination not only in antiquated buildings and homes, but also in new construction projects. Mesothelioma, an aggressive and fatal cancer linked to asbestos exposure, is just one of many threats posed by exposure to asbestos fibers that contaminate air or drinking water.
The United States is one of the last developed nations in the world that has failed to completely ban asbestos. While the Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule which called for a complete ban was passed more than twenty years ago in 1989, it was almost immediately overturned leaving America with strict regulations on asbestos use rather than a full force ban. These regulations mean that while it’s legal to use some asbestos products in industrial applications such as road construction, safe practices and strict maximums of the substance’s occurrence in construction have been put into place.
The FDEP suspects that Posen Construction may be using more than the legal limit of asbestos and asbestos products in the Summerlin overfly construction project. The contracting firm has been reprimanded in the past for illegal asbestos use, and were even forced by law to bring one of their work sites and the associated project into compliance with state asbestos regulations just a few years ago.
“If you look in close, you can see the fibers up in here and that’s usually an indication of asbestos,” said the FDEP’s Sherrill Culliver earlier this week, “I won’t be sure until I get my results back. But professionally, we’ve come across this a lot.”
The Summerlin overpass will remain on hold until the FDEP is certain that the construction conditions are safe. If amounts of asbestos are found in excess of the legal limit for this type of project, the firm will face fines and the potential for further legal action.
