Environmentalists say they are skeptical that a December report from the state Attorney General’s office will adequately address health concerns posed by chunks of asbestos that are washing up on the Lake Michigan shoreline near Waukegan
Environmentalists say they are skeptical that a December report from the state Attorney General’s office will adequately address health concerns posed by chunks of asbestos that are washing up on the Lake Michigan shoreline near Waukegan
After medical science linked asbestos to deadly diseases 50 years ago, the common construction material used in cement, roofing, insulation and numerous other products was outlawed nationwide.
However, decades later asbestos continues to haunt the Lake Michigan shoreline of Illinois Beach State Park, just north of Waukegan. It’s presence has launched a series of dueling reports on how harmful the material is, and how best to clean up and rebuild the beach.
State agencies contend that the asbestos, which regularly washes up in chunks on the shoreline, poses no threat to public health as long as it is not airborne. Meanwhile, environmentalists claim that particles have already become airborne, putting the visitors to the park at risk.
The more than one million annual visitors to Illinois Beach State Park make it the most visited park in Illinois and the 11th most visited park in the nation, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), Web site.
In December, a special taskforce assembled by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is expected to release an analysis of air, water and debris samples collected from the area, according to Matthew Dunn, Madigan’s chief of environmental enforcement.
The survey comes after 16 years of asbestos cleanup efforts by state agencies, including the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) and the IDNR, along with the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Johns-Manville, a now defunct asbestos manufacturing plant in the area that became a Superfund cleanup site.
“People should not have to wonder about chunks of asbestos washing onto the beach as their children play in the water,” said State Sen. Susan Garrett (D-29), who originally called on Madigan to assemble the taskforce.
The Illinois Dunesland Preservation Society, a watchdog group established in the 1940s to preserve and protect Illinois Beach State Park, has filed state and federal court requests asking the federal government to intervene in the cleanup, said Paul Kakuris, president of the Dunesland Society.
Kakuris said the state has a conflict of interest in determining the extent and cost of further cleanup efforts, and his group’s lack of confidence in the state’s objectivity led to its compilation of an independent report in 2003 known as the Camplin report, which outlines problems in and around the Johns-Manville Superfund site. Jeffery Camplin, a Dunesland volunteer who prepared the report, is president of Camplin Environmental Services, Inc., an environmental management company.
“It is a known fact that asbestos contaminates the entire 6.5 miles of shoreline of the Illinois Beach State Park,” said Camplin. “The park should not even be open to the public ... I agreed to work on the project because my kids play on that beach.”
Attorney General Lisa Madigan assembled the taskforce in July in response to Camplin’s report.
“The [Camplin] study was a mitigating factor in our decision to get the ball rolling on a taskforce to assess the risk,” Garrett said.
The task force report was complied from samples provided by the IDNR and tested by the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
“All of Camplin’s data was provided to UIC but they did not concur with his recommendation to close the beach,” Dunn said. “But the doctors did tell us we needed more samples.”
To provide those samples and further the cleanup the IDNR contracted an environmental management company, Carnow, Conibear and Associates, about a year ago to periodically remove material from the park that contained visible pieces of asbestos, according to Joe Bauer, spokesperson for the IDNR.
“By picking up these chunks of asbestos we are eliminating the health risk,” said William Child, chief for the Bureau of Land at the IEPA. “Our real concern is that dried asbestos fibers will become airborne.”
The IEPA will take action according to the results of taskforce research, said Child, who added, “We would not do anything to put the public at risk.”
But Kakuris said the state is doing too little, too late, and it’s only a matter of time before the remaining solid asbestos waste becomes airborne or “friable asbestos,” which can cause lung cancer and mesothelioma, according to the U.S. EPA.
While state officials are waiting for the study results “they are allowing regulated airborne asbestos to discharge illegally into federal and state waterways so it can wash up and dry on the beach,” Kakuris said.
Kakuris’ group also has taken issue with the IDNR’s method of replenishing the eroding shoreline at the far north end of the park. The project involves using Lake Michigan sediment, built up by the warm-water discharge of an adjacent coal-fired power plant owned by Midwest Generation.
The dredged material, used to replenish the fast-eroding beach near Midwest Generation’s fishing pier in the park, is highly contaminated with asbestos, among other things, according to Camplin, who said the practice will only exacerbate existing problems because the lake’s currents will then spread the material south along the shoreline.
If the state prolongs the issue, the asbestos will eventually disappear into the lake as waves and wind erode the beach, making cleanup impossible, Camplin said.
Camplin and the other modern-day environmentalists described a scenario that’s a throwback to the days when government agencies went by the motto: The solution to pollution is dilution.
“The state is directly responsible for dumping the asbestos all over the beach, so they are just waiting for the problem to go away,” said Kakuris.
Erin Meyer is the associate editor of Conscious Choice magazine.