Asbestos Consulting Company Settles Claims of Illegal Asbestos Work at Everett Redevelopment Project

Boston,MA (WorkersCompensation.com) — A Brockton asbestos consulting company will pay $52,000 in penalties and cease all operations to settle claims of illegal asbestos work during the 2020 redevelopment of a multi-building site that included multiple homes and an apartment building in a densely populated environmental justice neighborhood in Everett, Attorney General Maura Healey announced today. This is the third case the AG’s Office has brought against the same company in two years for illegal asbestos work at projects in Rockland, Arlington, Malden, Waltham, Boston, and Everett.

The consent judgment, entered in Suffolk Superior Court, settles a lawsuit brought by the AG’s Office against Enviro-Safe Engineering, the asbestos consulting company hired to survey the buildings set for demolition, including a former church, a parish hall, two single-family homes, and an apartment building for the presence of asbestos. The AG’s lawsuit alleges that the company violated the state’s clean air law and regulations by failing to properly inspect and sample areas that commonly contain materials potentially contaminated with asbestos and by failing to properly sample the areas that Enviro-Safe did inspect. The complaint further alleges that, as a result of these violations, the demolition of the buildings caused a release of asbestos at the work site, endangering workers, residents, and others in the community.

“Contractors who work with asbestos have an obligation to abide by our state’s critical workplace safety regulations and environmental laws,” AG Healey said. “This company repeatedly put the health and safety of its workers and the public at risk with their reckless and dangerous work practices, and today’s settlement stops them from doing it again.”

“The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) has a team of analysts, scientists, investigators and attorneys who are expert in and dedicated to enforcing the Commonwealth’s asbestos regulations,” said Eric Worrall, director of MassDEP’s Northeast Regional Office in Wilmington. “These laws are on the books to protect the environment and the public health, and the Department will continue to partner with the Attorney General’s Office to refer the most egregious cases, including consultants who repeat serious violations for appropriate prosecution and resolution.”

Under the terms of the consent judgment with Enviro-Safe Engineering, in addition to paying $52,000 in civil penalties, the company must cease all business operations, including all asbestos-related work. This settlement comes after the AG’s Office resolved two previous cases with Enviro-Safe Engineering by consent judgment for asbestos violations over the last two years. Under a 2021 settlement with the AG’s Office, the company was required to pay $165,000 in penalties, retrain its employees on asbestos safety, and implement a detailed document management system to ensure accurate documentation of its asbestos work in the future to settle allegations of illegal asbestos work at homes in Boston, Malden, Arlington, and Waltham. In 2020, the AG’s Office reached a settlement with Enviro-Safe, requiring the company to pay $10,000 in civil penalties for its involvement in illegal asbestos work at a large-scale renovation project at a low-income housing complex in an environmental justice neighborhood in Rockland.

Asbestos is a mineral fiber that is used in a wide variety of building materials, from roofing and flooring, to siding and wallboard, to caulking and insulation. If asbestos is improperly handled or maintained, fibers can be released into the air and inhaled, potentially resulting in life-threatening illnesses, including asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma.

AG Healey has made asbestos safety a priority, as part of her office’s “Healthy Buildings, Healthy Air” Initiative that was announced in March 2017 to better protect the health of children, families, and workers in Massachusetts from health risks posed by asbestos. Since September 2016, the AG’s Office, with the assistance of MassDEP, has successfully brought asbestos enforcement cases that together have resulted in more than $6.2 million in civil penalties.

For more information on asbestos and asbestos-related work, visit MassDEP’s website outlining asbestos construction and demolition notification requirements. For more information about asbestos-related worker safety and school safety requirements, visit the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards’s website for its asbestos safety program.

This case is being handled by Senior Enforcement Counsel Louis Dundin of AG Healey’s Environmental Protection Division, with assistance from MassDEP Northeastern Region Regional Counsel, Colleen McConnell, Deputy Regional Director of its Bureau of Air and Waste, John MacAuley, and Asbestos Section Chief Grady Dante.

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