Updated asbestos rule puts crimp in Tarentum's plans to fight blight

The house overlooking a hill on West 12th Avenue in Tarentum is crumbling.

Tattered curtains line one of the bottom windows, and at least two of the top windows are broken out. A chunk of wood is missing from the front porch. The walls are bowed and the roof has caved in.

The abandoned edifice is one of 17 or more properties throughout the borough that made it onto Tarentum's demolition list for this year.

But bringing down the houses won't be easy thanks to updates to laws regarding asbestos.

In 2010, the federal Environmental Protection Agency updated its asbestos NESHAP (National Emissions Standards of Hazardous Air Pollutants) to reflect residential demolitions by municipalities.

The updated regulation makes asbestos surveys mandatory for each building a municipality wants to raze.

If asbestos is found, municipalities are then required to pay a permit fee for each building. The cost of a permit depends on how big a building is and how much asbestos is found. The asbestos must then be removed by a licensed contractor.

The cost of the surveys — and possibly asbestos removal — means Tarentum likely won't get to tear down all of the structures it wanted to this year.

"This is something that is brand new, that nobody was aware of," Borough Manager Mike Gutonski said.

"Each community that has these plans for blight, they're running into this problem now because of this whole issue with asbestos removal in residential buildings," Gutonski said.

Tarentum set aside $50,000 for the demolitions, which is a significant increase from the near "nonexistent" amount they had for such projects in years past. The borough also is applying for a $234,070 Community Infrastructure and Tourism Fund grant, Gutonski said.

The regulation change was applied in 2011 and is being implemented by the Bureau of Environmental Health in Allegheny County's Health Department.

Jim Kelly, deputy director of the Bureau of Environmental Health, said the health department was made aware of the change to the regulation last year and immediately implemented it in the year's fourth quarter.

But Tarentum officials said they were blindsided by the update, finding out about it only early last week.

Kelly acknowledged that some of the county's 130 municipalities may have been unaware of the update to the regulation, attributing that to a lack of funding and the small size of his department.

"We didn't have the ability to reach out to everybody to let them know about the change," Kelly said. "It was being done on a case-by-case basis whenever we are aware of it."

Before the regulation was re-examined, the health department required that municipalities abate, or remove, asbestos only if they were tearing down two or more homes on a block or adjacent block.

Now, any single house is considered to be part of a project, Kelly said.

The health department began working with municipalities regarding the issue last year and plans to increase that effort, Kelly said. He said the department is required to enforce the standard because it is a matter of public health.

Tarentum officials said public safety is why they want to demolish the buildings in the first place. They are beyond repair and located largely in residential neighborhoods.

Residents have complained about them, and Gutonski worries someone could get hurt.

"Could you imagine if we had one of these homes that's nearing collapse and maybe there's a 10-year-old child next door … (and that child) wanders into one of these homes and gets hurt or, God forbid, killed?" Gutonski said.

"That's unacceptable. That's why we're trying to address the problem now."

Cost versus safety

Allegheny County has the highest asbestos-related mortality rate in the state, according to Kelly, and Pennsylvania has the third-highest asbestos-related mortality rate in the United States.

Asbestos is a hazardous building material found in older homes. Tearing down a residence that has asbestos runs the risk of exposing neighbors to the material, Kelly said.

"You don't look at this in the mindset of it costs more to do this," Kelly said. "This is what it takes to protect public health from asbestos."

Gutonski said the borough has "consistently" complied with the federal NESHAP standards in regards to its commercial and business districts.

Asbestos studies for those areas are "completely understandable," Gutonski said, but most of the buildings the borough wants to raze are abandoned homes.

In addition, the standard doesn't apply to individual homeowners who tear down their own homes themselves. It applies only to municipalities that want to hire companies to tear buildings down.

Gutonski said the borough feels like it is being "penalized" for trying to do something good for the community.

"Obviously, asbestos is a dangerous construction material that was used in years past, but I don't know how they can tell an individual that they can tear their house down without having to worry about these fees and regulations," Gutonski said.

Borough officials said the price to tear down a house is $8,000 to $10,000 and asbestos surveys can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $3,700.

Kelly said the fees Allegheny County is imposing are actually lower than in other places like Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, Kelly said, the fee equals 10 percent of the size of the job up to a certain limit. That means, if you have a 10,000-square-foot job, you have to pay a $1,000 fee.

"We have jobs that are tens of thousands of square (feet), and they're only paying an $850 fee," Kelly said, adding that the department's engineers don't recoup the cost of their time performing inspections.

"We have to send engineers out there repeatedly over and over again (because) they do these in phases," Kelly said.

Undaunted, Tarentum will chip away

Despite the fees, which Tarentum officials assume could "double" the original demolition costs, the borough will move forward.

Gutonski said it was never the borough's intention to tear down all of the buildings at once. The buildings that pose an immediate danger to the public, like the house on West 12th Avenue, will be "addressed regardless."

"Instead of getting, for example, 10 properties taken down, with all these new fees that are imposed upon the borough, if that drops it down to seven or six, so be it," he said.

"At least we're addressing the problem."

Madasyn Czebiniak is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-226-4702 or mczebiniak@tribweb.com.