Storm-damage repairs bring need for asbestos inspections

Owners of commercial buildings preparing to repair damage from this month's winter storms may need an asbestos inspection before they can get a building permit.

And some owners of buildings constructed in the last decade may be surprised to learn that their properties include materials containing asbestos.

"It's still there in some of the newer building products such as roofing and sheetrock," said Chris Ralph, an environmental engineering with the Air Quality Management Division of the Washoe County District Health Department.

At least three quarters of commercial buildings constructed before 1980 are likely to contain asbestos, Ralph said.

Even though federal regulations tightly limited use of asbestos, a cancer-causing substance, in the late 1970s, as many as a quarter of the buildings constructed from 1980 to 1995 contain asbestos.

Much of it, Ralph said, came from stocks of existing building supplies that manufacturers were allowed to sell after the law was tightened.

More recently, he said, building materials containing asbestos have entered the United States from Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Some of those products, he said, are labeled with the mineral names of asbestos such as chrysotile so buyers may not be aware of what the products contain.

But just because a building contains asbestos products doesn't mean that owners necessarily face the expense of removal and cleanup.

In most instances, the federal Environmental Protection Agency says,materials containing asbestos don't present a significant threat so long as they're not disturbed.

Building inspection departments, however, will want the Air Quality Management Division to sign off on the presence of asbestos before a permit is issued.

That generally requires an inspection by an air quality staff member.

The Air Quality Management Division's phone is 784-7200; it's open 8 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

Monday through Friday.