ST. PAUL - While denying that the school had done anything wrong, University of Minnesota (UM) officials recently agreed to pay a total of $60,000 in penalties that resulted from the school's alleged violations of state regulations that govern exposures to asbestos-a known cancer-causing agent. The penalties against the university were imposed by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), which charged the school with two separate offenses related to asbestos exposures at the UM-owned Centennial Showboat in St. Paul, and in a separate violation, at the college's UMore Park in Rosemount. The University was fined $5,000 for each offense, and under the terms of a separate agreement, the college will contribute an additional $50,000 to a fund that will support on-campus studies designed to educate students and faculty alike about the very real dangers of asbestos exposures.
While asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that was once widely prized by a broad spectrum of industries, the extremely hazardous material is now largely banned in many around the world. Asbestos can be found in the soil or in above ground outcropping formations. The mineral exists in a number of colors, types, and chemical compositions, though, medical professionals agree that all forms of asbestos pose some risk to human health.
In the 1970s, after many years of asbestos/disease related research, scientists became united in their belief that there existed no safe threshold of exposures to airborne, microscopic asbestos fibers. When these fibers are inhaled into the lungs, they can become permanently imbedded in soft tissues where, up to 50 years later, these fibers can result in the onset of serious respiratory diseases. Asbestos fibers have been proven to cause asbestosis, a debilitating scarring of the lungs that results in impaired lung function, as well as the incurable, aggressive, and inevitably fatal form of cancer known as malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Because of the dire risks associated with asbestos exposures, federal and state agencies have adopted a wide range of stringent rules and regulations that govern the handling and presence of the material, rules the MPCA says the university violated at its student movie theater venue within the dry-docked Centennial Showboat. MPCA officials claim the university was negligent because it failed to remove 45 cubic yards of asbestos from the Showboat theater, the hazardous material having been left behind after the ship's boiler had been dismantled. The MPCA says the university ignored the potential dangers of asbestos exposures among the more than 13,000 students who attended shows at the popular theater venue this past summer.
UM's General Counsel, Mark Rottenberg, disagrees. "The university hired a specialist to make sure the ship complied with asbestos regulations, and the specialist found the ship to be in compliance," said Rottenberg. "The subcontractor who provided the certificate that he was an asbestos abatement expert simply didn't do a good job," Rottenberg explained. "It was our boat, so we agreed to pay the $5,000 fine."
The university's second asbestos violation resulted from the MPCA's findings that the school improperly left a number of asbestos-containing wall panels on its UMore Park property, the panels left behind after a number of buildings had been demolished on the site in the 1940s. The panels were recently discovered on the school's 8,000 acre property while workmen had been clearing trees and brush on the land. Some of the panels were accidentally crushed by the work crews, which created the possibility for dangerous airborne exposures.
"The university contests that asbestos from the site became airborne," Rottenberg said. The attorney also stated that university officials feel that the school has done nothing wrong, but that it agreed to pay the fines because it simply wasn't worth the effort to fight it anymore.
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