PLYMOUTH, MA—The board of health has issued a resolution to compel the Plymouth Select Board to evacuate buildings that have been shown to pose a possible health risk to employees and adopt a comprehensive asbestos maintenance plan.
Board of Health Chairman Birgitta Kuehn read the resolution into the record at her board's meeting this week and said the town has defied a Department of Environmental Protection consent order issued in 1998, threatening the town with a $9,750 fine if it continues to violate state law as it pertains to the handling of asbestos.
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The order demanded the town implement a plan of action regarding the hazardous material. Kuehn said the town followed guidelines and directives of the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act when dealing with local school buildings, but the mandate was not implemented for other town buildings, some of which have been recently deemed a health hazard to employees.
The resolution comes in the wake of several scandals surrounding town building safety and maintenance. Fire station 7 was forced to temporarily relocate to a station in Kingston last month, and firefighters assigned to headquarters are living out of a trailer after chunks of concrete fell from the garage floor into the basement.
A recent study of the town's 28 buildings identified 93 immediate concerns and put the cost of those immediate fixes at nearly $2.5 million. The price for addressing all the town's building issues would be $10 million if addressed within the next two years, but would increase to $40 million if the timeline expanded to a decade.
At the board of health meeting, Kuehn said the town ignored former Director of Public Health Nate Horwitz Willis' pre-OSHA assessments on town buildings, conducted from July through September of 2018, which requested that a hygienist analyze several for potential carcinogens, including fire stations 1 through 7, the DPW Annex, the DPW Highway Barn and Memorial Hall.
But Town Manager Melissa Arrighi argued back, saying the town has evacuated employees from buildings deemed to be unsafe and is taking immediate action to remedy issues with the town buildings.
"The selectmen and I continue to place the fire stations as the top priorities," she wrote in an email.
Arrighi has filed an open meeting violation complaint with the attorney general against the Board of Health for its failure to clearly notify the public in its agenda that this resolution would be drafted and discussed.
With vital repairs like new roofs having been ignored in town buildings for years resulting in the current issues the town is experiencing with fire stations and the Department of Public Works Annex, Fire Chief Ed Bradley stated his frustration that, rather than focusing on the issues at hand, town management is entering into a fight with the Board of Health
"They are making battle plans and drawing battle lines instead of making building plans and drawing up maintenance guidelines," he said.
On Oct. 14, firefighters at Station 1, also known as the Center Fire Station and department headquarters at 114 Sandwich St., were evacuated when debris from the ceilings rained into office and living space while work was being done on the building's roof. Calling it the worst week in his 45-year career, Bradley complained that the town's firefighters had been living in squalor, with flooding, roof leaks, inadequate space and facilities to protect them from hazardous issues like asbestos and mold.
Then, 24 days later, firefighters and a pump truck were evacuated from Station 7 when chunks of the concrete floor in the bay showered into the basement, exposing a disintegrating length of reinforcing steel beneath.
And a tour of the building revealed other serious issues. Chronic roof leaks had left a wall in the living quarters with a suspicious-looking white bubbling surface that looked like mold but was, in fact, friable asbestos that had leached out of the wall. The town manager closed the building as a result.
Also plagued by pernicious roof leaks, the West Plymouth and Manomet fire stations need extensive repairs including new roofs. Bradley said there are also issues at the Bourne Road fire station, and firefighters at a number of stations are living in absolutely unacceptable conditions.
More than 20 years after the DEP consent order, the town still has no asbestos plan for the rest of the buildings and infrastructure within its environs, and a number of town employees are at risk, Kuehn said.
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