ASBESTOS AT B.U.S., HERALD BUILDING, COUNTY BARN

By Juan Montoya
Have you heard that the negotiations between Cameron County and AIM Newspapers over the sale of the Brownsville Herald building on Van Buren has hit  snag over the possible lead and asbestos contamination at the site?
This, apparently, is not the first time that the issue has come up. According to some of our local Realtor friends, potential buyers in the past have learned that the abatement of asbestos at the site (pre-1975 building) will cost a pretty penny. And as far as lead, well, remember that newspapers used to pour it to set the type in the days of yore.
Regardless, apparently, the county is planning to buy the site to add critically needed parking spaces for its courthouse. If you have ever been there on jury duty day, a parking space is at a premium, even forcing Cameron County Judge candidate Dan Sanchez to appropriate a constable's spot conveniently close to the courts.
There has even been talk of a parking structure.
Whatever the plans may be, asbestos abatement is a costly proposition and we have heard that there has been at least one report by an asbestos mediation firm when talk of a sale came up before. We are trying to acquire the report, with little success so far.
Over at the Brownsville Urban System, the ad hoc management there has stumbled across the issue, albeit rather ineptly.
It seems that more than a dozen maintenance workers at BUS were ordered by supervisor Jose Cisneros and city supervisor (liaison) Jeff Stewart at the direction of Director Norma Zamora to demolish some walls at the Colunga building there. For two months in 2014 (October and November), they labored cleaning up the offices, including removing lights, and electric lines and pipes.
The workers were unaware that the place was full of asbestos and were unprotected when they were directed to work there. Some of the workers are no longer there, having come under the hatchet of management and were fired.
However, after several months of exposure, the situation came to the attention of City of Brownsville Permitting Director Evaristo Gamez and he arrived on the scene to halt the work on the demolition. The walls are still standing there at the bus barn and those workers exposed to the asbestos can only wonder whether they will pay later for having inhaled the fibers.
BUS is a hybrid of sorts, with the city hiring the management firm to run it with Stewart as its liaison. We can only imagine the cutting of corners as the private management firm seeks to maintain its bottom line and profit margin.
This is not the first time that Cameron County has run into the asbestos trap. Years ago, it tried to improve the county barn that housed Precincts 1 and 2 on 14th Street behind the then-Rancho Alegre Restaurant. But then county officials learned that the cost for asbestos abatement at the building would make the cost prohibitive. They moved to try to contain the stuff instead. To this day, precinct employees still use the buildings and are exposed (at least marginally) to the dangers of asbestos.
If any of our four readers know where we can get a hold of the asbestos report for the Herald building, we'd like to take a gander at it.