Aldermen fear tornado’s destruction could lead to environmental hazards

Concerns over lead and asbestos in the swath of North St. Louis hit by the May 16 tornado were front and center at an aldermanic hearing last week. Elected leaders stressed that the removal of these hazardous materials absolutely had to be done correctly in the coming months, warning that mistakes could set the city up for long-term catastrophe.

Aldermen sitting on the Public Safety Committee expressed concern that if the cleanup of tornado debris is handled in a way that unleashes toxic material into the air or the ground, “we’re going to have a mile and a half wide swath through the city that just is uninhabitable in the future,” in the words of Committee Chairman Bret Narayan. Others raised worries about future generations becoming sick or the possibility of a class-action lawsuit against the city more than a decade from now.

“If your house was built between 1900 and 1980, it almost certainly has asbestos in it,” noted Narayan. Many, if not most, of the homes in the impacted area fit that criteria. Additionally, lead paint was not banned from homes until 1978. In the wake of the May 16 tornado, many homes containing these hazardous materials are right now lying in ruin, either as piles of debris or structures destined for demolition.

The impetus for Thursday’s hearing was in part due to frustrated labor unions who say they had struggled to get answers from the City’s Recovery Office concerning questions about the handling of asbestos in the tornado zone. Those questions include: how soil, air, and water are being monitored for lead and asbestos contamination; how residents are being notified of potential lead or asbestos contamination, as well as how the city is ensuring that out-of-state contractors operating in the recovery zone are properly licensed.

Aldermanic President Megan Green tells SLM that she has been hearing from advocacy groups like Just Moms STL, the community group that led the effort to clean up the West Lake Landfill. They are warning, she says, that if “we don’t remediate this and do it quickly, we could find ourselves in a situation in 10 or 15 years where we see a lot of folks getting sick.” Green adds, “So we need to make sure that we’re putting the procedures in place now to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

Putting those procedures in place is the responsibility of numerous entities, as funding for the cleanup comes from city, state, and federal coffers. At the Public Safety Committee hearing on Thursday, however, it was the city’s Chief Recovery Officer Julian Nicks who was tasked with addressing committee members’ concerns.

Nicks said smaller demolition and debris removal operations have been underway, but the much larger operation for demolition and debris removal—a project funded by FEMA and administered by the state of Missouri—has not yet begun. The state is taking the lead on that effort. “We believe this needs to happen yesterday,” Nicks said. But the request for proposals for the project will not go out until next month at the earliest.

Nicks said the city has been closely involved in crafting those RFPs. “There have been delays,” he acknowledged, saying those delays were due in part to conflicts that needed to be resolved between state and city laws and state procedures. (The state is running the procurement process based on its procedures, but the company that is ultimately selected will have to adhere to city ordinances.)

As for concerns about the handling of hazardous materials, Nicks said the RFP includes “a heavy amount of tracking and monitoring.” Material containing asbestos will be transported in lined and covered trucks to facilities licensed to handle such material and that are aware of the scope and type of debris they are receiving. The same applies to materials containing potentially dangerous levels of lead.

Green noted to Nicks that while testing debris before removal is important, her concern is that debris has been sitting in place for more than six months, exposed to rain, snow, and “all sorts of things that can cause those contaminants that are part of that debris to go into the soil, go into the ground, stay in place longer … even after that debris is removed.”

Some testing of the soil is now underway. Researchers associated with WashU’s new Public Exchange started conducting testing on sites hit by the tornado in October, with a special focus on lead. Executive director Chris van Bergen says they’re working with nonprofits Love the Lou and 4 the Ville and expect analysis of the collected samples to take place early next year. They plan to have heat maps and a dedicated website to share the results by the spring.

“The city has its own plans for monitoring at demolition sites,” he says. “Our intent is to support and add to that scope of work if we can, especially by focusing on areas that complement their efforts which we anticipate doing so in collaboration with the city and the environmental consultants they will engage.”

Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard floated the need for additional safety measures, including a protocol used in Detroit wherein all the hazardous material being transported out of the disaster zone followed the same route. That way, if there were any issues they would be confined to a single, known path. 

Another concern raised by Hubbard and Aldermen Rasheen Aldridge was that contractors conducting demolitions were not spraying structures with water as they were knocked down, a step intended to prevent toxic material from becoming airborne.

“As much as I’m on the ground, the only demolition that I’ve seen water being used is the one that was off of Union and Kingsbury,” said Hubbard, whose Ward 10 was among the hardest hit by the tornado. “I have seen some demolition that comes in our communities and they are either doing them overnight or on the weekends, when they know we can’t get somebody right over there if somebody reports it.”

Referring to the illegal demolitions, Aldridge said that contractors neglecting to use water spray is nothing new. “We really need to make sure that, as things ramp up, that we are making sure that [lack of] enforcement has been an issue for a while is not an issue at this moment.”

The day after the meeting, Hubbard texted a link to a video posted to Facebook by Porscha Anderson showing a house in the affected area being torn down. Hubbard asked Anderson in the comments if the crew was spraying water. Anderson replied, “No they are not spraying anything. Whoever is demoing this house is not the most professional.”