Asbestos Challenge: Screening Asbestos Fibers from Sand
The Waukegan, Illinois Asbestos Puzzle
A complicated mix of challenges is unfolding in Waukegan, Illinois. Midwest Generation, operator of a coal-fired plant, has obtained a permit to sift through some 15,000 cubic yards of sand to determine whether asbestos can be removed from it in order to make it safe to sell. Asbestos is known by mesothelioma attorneys to be a major cause of a deadly asbestos cancer that requires difficult and expensive cancer treatment.
Through the years, the sand has been dredged from a nearby canal that uses lake water to cool the plant. If the asbestos can be screened from the sand the utility is hoping to sell it to road builders.
However, state EPA ordered Midwest Generation to cover the screening operation with a tent because officials were worried about microscopic asbestos fibers blowing into the surrounding area, increasing the chance of mesosthelioma cancer in residents. The utility must also test the filtered air.
Midwest Generation’s sand pile is next to an abandoned Johns Manville factory, manufacturers of asbestos shingles and pipes for more than sixty years. It is also close to a city beach that Waukegan, Illinois officials want to protect as part of a lakefront preservation effort. The sand pile is sprinkled with bits of shingles and pipes that if inhaled can potentially cause asbestosis, an incurable thickening of the lungs, and mesothelioma, a devastating form of lung cancer that can take years to develop, according to mesothelioma attorneys.
The filtering project is the latest effort to resolve long-standing frustration with asbestos that washes up on Illinois Beach State Park and other area beaches. Officials fear that beach sports such as tossing Frisbees, playing volleyball or making sand castles can put dangerous levels of asbestos in the air.
