PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: Old Davis Hospital
ASSOCIATED OIG REPORT: “Delayed Cleanup of Asbestos Debris at the Old Davis Hospital Site Necessitates Changes for EPA Region 4 and North Carolina”


[GARY]  Hello, I’m Gary Sternberg, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General. I’m speaking with Leon Carter, who works in the OIG’s Office of Audit and Evaluation. Leon worked as part of a team that determined there was a significant delay in the handling of asbestos cleanup during the demolition of the Old Davis Hospital in Statesville, North Carolina. First of all, Leon, we should address what we mean by “the Old Davis Hospital.”

[LEON]  Right. The Old Davis Hospital, also known as the Old Statesville Hospital, was opened during the 1920s and operated into the 1980s. From that point on, the hospital was closed but remained standing as an abandoned site until the owner of the property decided to tear it down. The building happened to be in a residential area and adjacent to a community college.

[GARY]  Leon, what are the health consequences of asbestos exposure and what federal regulation addresses asbestos demolitions?

[LEON]   Great question, Gary. First, the EPA has stated that there is no safe level of asbestos exposure. Diseases that result from asbestos exposure include cancer, and can be fatal. Second, the Asbestos National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, or NESHAP, regulate asbestos demolitions with the goal of minimizing human exposure to asbestos dust. Asbestos is usually manually removed from buildings to avoid creating asbestos dust when a building is demolished. When asbestos is demolished with a building, it contaminates all of the debris. Therefore, national standards require that all of the contaminated demolition debris be kept wet to control asbestos dust until it can be promptly removed in leak-tight containers.
 
[GARY]  Okay. Obviously, regarding demolition of the Old Davis Hospital, at some point the EPA Office of Inspector General determined that a problem existed. How did we come to do an audit?

[LEON]   It all started when an individual who lived in Statesville, North Carolina, contacted the EPA OIG’s hotline. The old hospital was said by some to be haunted and drew ghost hunting enthusiasts as well as vagrants to the unsecured property. The individual who called our hotline reported that people were ransacking the building, and potentially causing themselves and residents to be exposed to asbestos debris. The Office of Inspector General did some online research on the hotline complaint and came across a concerning video showing how the teardown was being conducted with asbestos in place, creating significant dust, and no apparent wetting of the debris. We also found news reports about neighbors complaining of an illegal demolition.

[GARY]  And then what happened?

[LEON]  Well, seeing that there was a potential public health emergency, the OIG contacted the EPA’s Region 4 asbestos coordinator, who contacted officials for the state of North Carolina. The state confirmed that the manner in which the demolition was being conducted was a violation of law. Then the OIG sent a formal notification to EPA Region 4, and the regional office took action. We didn’t want to initiate an audit until the EPA’s regional office had a chance to complete its work.

[GARY]  So, the OIG was a catalyst in bringing swift attention to the problem based on a hotline complaint?

[LEON]  Yes, that’s accurate, but I also need to mention a call, from another citizen, to the National Response Center, which is the federal point of contact for reporting inappropriate discharges into the environment. That individual also complained that demolition at the Old Davis Hospital site was causing asbestos to be released into the neighborhood in dust form. During demolition at such a site, specific work practices are needed to control the release of asbestos fibers into the air to reduce the possibility that the public will be exposed to it. Similar to the OIG, the National Response Center relayed the complaint to EPA Region 4. The EPA regional office, as required, referred the complaints to the state of North Carolina. 

[GARY]  So what happened next?

[LEON]  Based on a National Response Center notice, North Carolina health officials confirmed the presence of asbestos at the Old Davis Hospital site and stopped the demolition, indicating—as I mentioned earlier—a national standards violation. The state chose to follow its own enforcement process to address the issue, rather than ask the EPA to step in right away. Over a seven-month period, the state was in regular contact with the property owner regarding cleanup at the site, but the owner declined to clean up the site despite being on the receiving end of an estimated twenty-thousand dollars in fines. Later, during the OIG’s audit, North Carolina officials told us the state did not have statutory authority or the estimated one-point-four million dollars needed to clean up the site. Further, state officials said they did not fully understand the extent to which the EPA could use its own authority under the Superfund law to remediate the site.

[GARY]  So, how did the EPA eventually get involved with the cleanup?

[LEON]  In May 2016, after the Office of Inspector General inquiry, EPA Region 4 requested more information from the state of North Carolina regarding the Old Davis Hospital demolition. After it received that additional information, EPA Region 4 determined that the national standards violation prompted a time-critical cleanup using EPA authority, which began in June 2016. However, more than seven months had passed since both the EPA Region 4 office and the state were alerted to the problem and appropriate cleanup began. As a result, people living near the demolition site were at risk of asbestos exposure during the time. Also, the site was not secured and the public was not informed of potential danger from the site until June 2016, at which point the EPA secured the site, assigned a community involvement coordinator, provided fact sheets in response to residents’ questions, and provided local government officials with pollution and sampling reports.

[GARY]  Leon, can you explain what the EPA can do when the responsible party or the state is unable or unwilling to act in such a situation?

[LEON]  Sure. I think that everyone will remember what happened in Flint, Michigan, a few years back when it became widely known that a new water supply was contaminated with lead. In January 2016, Gina McCarthy, who was then Administrator of the EPA, instituted a protocol of elevating critical public health and environmental issues to senior EPA management. That document, which remains in place, lays out specific parameters for EPA personnel to intervene at an early stage when there is a community-level crisis. Those parameters include the appearance of a substantial threat to public health and when other authorities, such as state and local governments, appear to be unable or unsuccessful in effectively addressing such a threat. Additionally, the EPA has Superfund authority, which allows it to intervene to protect public health and to pursue restitution from the responsible party.

[GARY]  The Old Davis Hospital site has now been appropriately cleaned up. But what does the EPA need to do to make sure this kind of problem doesn’t happen again?

[LEON]  The audit team recommended that EPA Region 4, in coordination with the state of North Carolina, develop a policy under which the state will inform the EPA when it does not have the authority or resources to remediate asbestos at a demolition site. Further, while we did not make any formal recommendations to address this issue on a nationwide basis, we think that all of the EPA regions and all of the states should be aware of the potential problem and the need for EPA to get involved promptly when the state is unable to act.

[GARY]  Thank you so much, Leon, for sharing the results of this important audit. For more information about this report and other EPA Office of Inspector General work, please visit our website at www-DOT-epa-DOT-gov-FORWARD SLASH-oig, and be sure to follow us on Twitter at epaoig.