Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

An Illinois power company recently obtained permission from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to try to remove chunks of asbestos and asbestos particles from sand dredged from a canal that draws water from Lake Michigan. This is the latest in a series of concerns about asbestos that wash up onto Illinois shores, including Illinois Beach State Park, dubbed Asbestos Beach by environmental watchdog groups.

According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, Midwest Generation has permission to sift the nearly 15,000 cubic yards of sand to find out if enough of the asbestos particles contained in the sand can be removed to make the sand safe for use in a state road building project.

The Tribune story says Midwest Generation’s sand pile is next door to an abandoned Johns Manville factory that made asbestos shingles and pipe for more than sixty years.

Because asbestos is hazardous at even low levels of exposure, the EPA is requiring the power company to contain the test sift operation within a tent, and to operate special fans and filters to screen out tiny asbestos particles. The company also is required to test the air daily.

Exposure to asbestos can cause asbestosis, a severe scarring of the lungs that impedes breathing and can cause death, and mesothelioma, a deadly cancer.

If the testing process proves to successfully remove the danger of asbestos exposure from the sand, the company will have the green light from the EPA to begin a large-scale sifting operation to clean the sand.

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1. Asbestos Beach open for summer
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4. Exposing Homeless to Risk
5. asbestos scare halts play

Tags: asbestos, Asbestos Beach, asbestosis, mesothelioma

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