There is an asbestos scare in Lee County, Florida.

A few days ago, asbestos was discovered in some of the fill dirt being used in a construction project that involves widening Summerlin Road and building an overpass. The Summerlin Road project is in the hands of Posen Construction, a company who has already established a track record with Lee County of inappropriate use of asbestos.

Lee County Commissioner Brian Bigelow and others are concerned that the asbestos found in the fill dirt may pose a health risk not only to the workers who handled it but also to the surrounding public. This is a legitimate worry considering the well-known harmful effects of exposure to asbestos. However, the very nature of asbestos makes it difficult to tell what the risk may be since the damage that asbestos causes to the body only surfaces many years after exposure.

Asbestos exposure has been linked to several serious diseases including asbestosis, a form of lung disease, and mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that is extremely difficult to diagnose. Because it can take up to 30 years after exposure for symptoms of the cancer to become apparent, a diagnosis of mesothelioma is usually fatal.

The main problem that Lee County is having with the discovery of this asbestos is determining the source. The county is waiting by to take legal action against Posen, but the company, of course, denies any blame. It is possible that the asbestos may have come from an old water pipe that, when incorrectly dealt with, released asbestos into the surrounding dirt. It is also possible that the dirt bought by Posen from Fort Myers landfill may have been contaminated without Posen’s knowledge.

Either way, it is important that Lee County get to the bottom of this breakout. Posen has been given 10 days to organize a clean-up, but that is not enough. It is not sufficient to simply remove the asbestos. The Lee County community deserves to know exactly what happened and the guilty party identified to make sure that the long-term health of thousands of innocent people is protected.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Mesothelioma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.