EVALUATION OF AMBIENT ASBESTOS CONCENTRATIONS IN BUILDINGS FOLLOWING THE LOMA-PRIETA EARTHQUAKE

On October 17, 1989, an earthquake struck central, coastal California including San Francisco and the Bay Area, damaging many buildings. Bec ause of concern over the possible exposure to asbestos in the damaged buildings, building owners/managers hired several Bay Area industrial hygiene firms to collect air samples in suspect buildings. RJ Lee Grou p analyzed a total of 419 air samples from 55 buildings (25 school, 3 university, 20 commercial, 5 public, and 2 residential buildings) usin g transmission electron microscopy and has compiled the results. The d ata from each building were averaged and grouped accordingly into thre e classifications: indoor buildings, buildings with asbestos abatement in progress at the time of the earthquake, and buildings where sampli ng was performed to monitor clean-up of debris, Several buildings were sampled on more than 1 day. The results indicate that asbestos levels differed little from outdoor levels, even immediately after the earth quake. Exceptions to this were samples collected in the vicinity of de bris clean-up and in buildings undergoing abatement which were higher than the indoor or outdoor samples. However, these samples generally h ad concentrations below the AHERA clearance levels and all were well b elow the OSHA action limit. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.