Environment

Three contractors will pay $1 million in asbestos case

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – Three people face possible prison terms after pleading guilty to illegally removing asbestos from a former Southwest Michigan power plant. They also agreed to reimburse the federal government for the approximately $1 million that the Environmental Protection Agency spent to clean up the contaminated facility in Kalamazoo County’s Comstock Township. Investigators believe the case “may be the largest asbestos release in Michigan since it was declared a hazardous air pollutant in 1971,” the U.S. Attorney’s office in Grand Rapids said. The trio’s illegal activity, spanning more than a year in 2011-12, imperiled the environment as well as the health of the public and laborers on the project, according to the EPA. Scientists have linked asbestos to serious health dangers such as lung cancer, mesothelioma, asbestosis and nonmalignant lung disorders.

Public Safety

Two men go to trial in Bay City asbestos case

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — A jury trial is scheduled to begin April 29 on asbestos-related criminal charges stemming from the conversion of a former church into a Bay City charter school. Roy Bradley Sr. and Gerald Essex are accused of violating the Clean Air Act by failing to properly handle, remove and dispose of material containing asbestos on the Bay City Academy project. The charter school has more than 500 students from kindergarten through 9th grade at the former church and two other buildings. Bradley, who owned Lasting Impressions, the contractor business doing the remodeling, was in charge of the project. Essex was the foreman supervising demolition and renovation activity at the site between August 2010 and September 2011, according to court documents.