Deer Trail – Officials in this small town ran into a big problem when they tried to raze a crumbling old building: asbestos contamination that threatened to consume the entire town budget.
Nestled between a livestock-feed supplier and a boarded-up dry-goods store on a main street that never quite recovered from a 1965 flood, the century-old Schindler building couldn’t be left standing – and it couldn’t be cleaned up.
“It was dangerous, but we couldn’t afford to do anything with it. It was mind-boggling,” said Mayor Jim Johnson.
Decaying, asbestos-laden buildings have become a problem for many small towns on the Eastern Plains.
Among the small communities now wrestling with expensive asbestos problems, according to the Colorado Brownfields Foundation, are:
Eaton, where an abandoned sugar- beet plant anchoring the middle of town was appraised at $65,000 but would require an asbestos cleanup at several times that amount;
Eads, where a historic-preservation project is facing an unexpected $100,000 in asbestos abatement;
Fowler, where a project to renovate two affordable-housing projects has come to a complete standstill after asbestos was discovered in the buildings.
Located far from landfills handling asbestos and certified abatement contractors, small towns struggle with the huge costs and technical cleanup knowledge.
“There’s a crying need out there,” said Mark Walker of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “There’s no cheap way for small towns to dispose of asbestos safely, and there’s no money.”
In Deer Trail, a contractor last year had begun demolishing the building when state health officials discovered it contained cancer-causing asbestos.
The naturally occurring mineral, used in construction until the 1980s as a fire retardant and insulation, is a serious public-health hazard when pulverized and dispersed as dust.
“Any building built in the 1950s or prior probably has asbestos in it, and you see it everywhere in these rural communities,” said Johnson, the mayor.
For the single dilapidated building in Deer Trail, the town of 600 residents faced a cleanup bill exceeding its $100,000 annual budget.
Deer Trail officials landed a $110,000 grant from the state health department that typically goes to clean up chemically contaminated sites in urban areas. That funding is limited.
Facing abatement’s high cost, many property owners simply raze or renovate buildings illegally, ignoring contamination and risking criminal charges, health officials say.
A fraction of property owners seek asbestos inspections and abatement permits, said Tom Bain, a state health department asbestos inspector.
“Last year, we had close to 4,000 asbestos-related projects,” Bain said. “You got to know there’s more activity than that out there.”
The state records about 68 violations annually and obtains fines, which average $4,000, in fewer than 10 cases a year.
In Deer Trail, the matter has been met with antipathy, despite the decay on First Avenue.
Running parallel to the railroad tracks on the south edge of town, the street once served as bustling U.S. 40 before the interstate was built. The false-fronted stores that housed Jolly’s Dry Goods and the Deer Trail Tribune now sit vacant.
In July, moon-suited contractors cloaked plastic sheeting around what was left of the Schindler building and removed asbestos-laden debris and plaster from the walls of the neighboring buildings.
The exercise left an empty lot that the town intends to sell to a commercial buyer.
Some residents think government should simply butt out of what they call a private-property matter, said Patti Owens, the Deer Trail town clerk. Some even briefly considered staging an “unfortunate” fire to disguise the asbestos problem.
“I hate for people to feel like they have no way out,” Bain said. “Sometimes, people out of desperation will do something they shouldn’t have.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
