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EPA testing Big Tex plant site for asbestos

Web Posted: 02/25/2008 10:46 PM CST

Anton Caputo
Express-News

Crews in full "moon suits" and respirators have been all over the old Big Tex site the past few days trying to determine how much asbestos is left over from the area's industrial past.

The testing, conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency, is the next step in a process to transform the area, home to a collection of dilapidated metal buildings on the banks of the San Antonio River, into a multimillion-dollar mixed-use development.

"The sooner we know what is going on, the better for everybody," said Eric Delgado, EPA on-scene coordinator.

The stretch of metal buildings off Probandt Street in the King William neighborhood got its common name, Big Tex, from a grain company that operated there. But it's the facility's association with W.R. Grace & Co. that has attracted the attention of federal cleanup crews.

W.R. Grace & Co. now is known to have sent millions of tons of vermiculite ore from its mine in Libby, Mont., to 200 locations throughout the country despite, according to federal court documents, company officials' knowledge that the ore was tainted with tremolite asbestos. This is a particularly hazardous form of asbestos that can cause lung cancer and other deadly illnesses. The San Antonio site was one of the company's largest plants, processing 124,000 tons of the tainted ore from 1961 to 1989.

Crews are in the middle of punching 320 holes in the site, taking samples of dirt from each, typically at depths of 6 inches but as deep as 2 feet in some spots. They probably will be at the site until the end of this week testing the soil as well as shafts underneath the facility, Delgado said.

Lab results won't be available for three to four weeks. Then crews will return for a series of tests to determine how much asbestos dust is kicked into the air by normal activity. Cleanup work should be completed by the end of the year.

Developer James Lifshutz wants to redevelop the 7.5-acre site in the style of the trendy Blue Star Arts Complex that stands nearby, but he has said he will do so only after authorities give the property an unequivocal clean bill of health.

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