BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON -- Testing and cleaning for possible asbestos exposure will keep Latonia Elementary closed again today.
School officials said air quality checks and clean-up of sealed construction areas would force cancellation of a meeting planned with parents originally scheduled for Thursday. But when confronted by a number of angry parents Thursday afternoon, they held the meeting anyway.
Another meeting was rescheduled for 1 p.m. today.School is expected to reopen on Monday after being shut down for three days. Asbestos might have been dislodged from ceiling tiles while workers were wiring classrooms for Internet access.
To wire the school for the Internet, contractors worked at night, slicing long rows into the ceiling to make room for a three-sided box containing the wires. After the holes were cut, the school was tested for asbestos and came up clean.
For the past two weeks, a different contractor was installing the wires in their boxes. In doing so, pieces of the ceiling fell and holes drilled into the concrete created dust.
Concerns about the dust and signs warning of asbestos in sealed off areas prompted officials to close the school on Wednesday. According to the state Division of Air Quality Control, asbestos is not harmful unless it is disturbed and becomes a dust or a powder. When asbestos fibers become airborne, they can be inhaled and that can lead to cancer.
The division monitors asbestos control in the state's 3,800 school buildings. Of those, about 3,000 contain asbestos in some form, said Robbin Edwards, chief environmental technologist. In schools, the substance is most often found in ceiling and floor tiles, fireproofing and thermal system installation.
New regulations in the early 1980s prompted many schools and public buildings to remove fireproof asbestos ceilings where the asbestos was sprayed on. (Those ceilings look like dried foam.) That was considered very dangerous because the asbestos did not stay intact in the foam form.
The Asbestos Hazardous Emergency Response Act of 1987 required all schools to complete asbestos management plans by Oct. 12, 1988. Ms. Edwards supervises those plans, which are reviewed and inspected every three years.
When asbestos fibers do get into the air, they can hang there for as long as 20 hours, according to the 1997 The Handy Science Answer Book.
Ingestion can cause asbestosis, a chronic lung disease. Asbestos is also believed to cause cancers in the larynx, pharynx, oral cavity, pancreas, kidneys, ovaries and the gastrointestinal tract.
It takes cancer 15 to 20 years to develop after exposure to asbestos. Superintendent James Kemp said no one in the building was in any danger.
