Worries over Asbestos Removal Unnecessary – UN

The United Nations or the UN had sought ought many ways to reassure their nervous staff last Friday over the safety issues of an asbestos removal project. It was mentioned that there is a significant amount of toxic asbestos found at the United Nations headquarters while it was undergoing its major renovation tasks. The removal of such toxic asbestos will, assures the UN, be done with utmost care and safety.

Other Measures To be Taken by Groups

Farhaq Haq, a spokesman for the United Nations, told reporters that aside from their asbestos abatement project, they will also bring in another independent group which will be in charge of the monitoring of abatement process to ensure that everything is done in a highly safe manner. Farhaq Haq was busy fielding responses over concerns regarding the removal of asbestos. Asbestos is a toxic substance which is highly cancerous and is flame-retardant as well. It had lined the many ceiling tiles of their entire United Nations building and concerns over this matter had been raised by union president Stephen Kisambira. The concern was raised during one news conference last Thursday. Kisambira mentioned that a lot of people had been working many hours inside the headquarters of the United Nations and have become very concerned over the renovation project which will cost them around two billion dollars. The intent of this project was to create a safer, greener and more comfortable forty storey building located along the East River of Manhattan.

Officials Tasked with the Monitoring

Skanska USA Building, which is a building firm unit, has been heralded as the construction manager that will work on overseeing the entire asbestos removal project. Haq had also mentioned that ATC Associates, which is a body that specializes on environmental engineering, safety and health, shall be the one to monitor the entire project. Michael Adlerstein, a New York-based architect shall be the one to oversee the entire renovation of the building of the United Nations. He will also be the one to give further details regarding the workload which the ATC company will be undertaking. Since it is a certified independent consultant that is tasked with taking some air samples at interval times during the day, it will also prescribe some locations in and around the entire work area. This was mentioned in an email he had sent to Reuters recently. However, Kisambira also said that there were still some concerns because of doubts regarding the legal actions that also include major allegations of negligence. This was also on the part of the Skanska group and happened during the procedure of asbestos removal bank in 2005 to 2006 in Salinas, California. However, Adlerstein had mentioned that all of these charges were dropped and dismissed back in 2007.