By Mark Gutglueck
City officials in Big Bear Lake have gone into crouch and are remaining tight-lipped in the face of recurrent accusations that the accommodationist policy of its [community development] department has subjected some residents to the risk of asbestos exposure.
Over the last six months, the city’s building and safety department has found itself second-guessed the Air Quality Management District, which has shut down some demolition projects that had been given permits by the city. The AQMD took that action because of suspicion or determination that there was asbestos or asbestos containing materials contained in structures that were either being demolished or within the walls, ceilings, floors, siding, framework for appliances or serving as insulation and that the city had either failed to identify or require in the permits a protocol or process for keeping asbestos fibers from becoming liberated and airborne.
Asbestos is a group of naturally occurring, fibrous, fire-resistant and heat-resistant minerals used for insulation, strength, and fireproofing in building materials. It becomes hazardous when damaged or disturbed, releasing microscopic fibers into the air that can be inhaled. These fibers lodge in lungs, causing fatal diseases like mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestiosis years after exposure. Asbestos was heavily used in construction and manufacturing from the early 1900s through the 1970s for fireproofing and insulation. A scientific determination of the danger of asbestos was made in 1970 and the Environmental Protection Agency declared it a carcinogen [cancer-causing] agent in 1975. While restrictions with regard to its use began in the 1970s and continued incrementally thereafter, particularly a 1977 ban on spray-on fireproofing applications, it was not completely phased out of all products until the Environmental Protection Agency’s comprehensive ban on chrysotile asbestos in March 2024.
Pre-1950 homes in California and elsewhere frequently used asbestos insulation. Asbestos was present in textured paint and patching in walls and ceilings until the late 1970s. Vinyl floor tiles and sheet backing being manufactured into the 1980s contained asbestos. Fireproofing wrapped around heating/venting/air conditioning systems and pipes used near stoves contained asbestos.
Increasingly over the last several years, there have been and are now ongoing efforts at repairing, refurbishing, expanding or rebuilding some of the homes, cabins and other structures in Big Bear Lake, which is at or certainly near the forefront of San Bernardino County’s tourism-oriented communities. In some of those cases, the structures remain intact, although extensive renovation is carried out on them, internally and externally as the case may be. In others, the structures are demolished entirely, most often so that a new home can be erected in its place.
Health hazards attend a circumstance in which asbestos-containing construction materials are disturbed, such that what are referred to as friable particles become airborne. Because these particles can prove to be very destructive to the lungs and related tissues, resulting in mesothelioma, cancer and asbestiosis, which in their advanced stages are nearly always fatal unless the victim expires from some other cause, there are federal and state government protocols in place for removing asbestos containing materials or demolishing structures containing them intended to limit human exposure to, and environmental contamination by, asbestos fibers. These regulations mandate that local agencies and governmental entities with land use/planning/construction standard/environmental safety authority enforce those protocols or at the very least, monitor all activities where asbestos-containing materials are likely to be exposed and create a hazard for the public within their respective jurisdictions.
The applications for permits to engage in such demolition projects in Big Bear, similar to those in many other cities, contain a reference, in the form of a box that is checked or Xed, relating to the adherence to asbestos abatement standards and/or the contractor’s/applicant’s use of an asbestos abatement specialist certified by the state in those cases where asbestos or asbestos-containing materials are present.
Some Big Bear Lake residents have alleged, and information, documentation and photographs available to the Sentinel indicate, that in processing demolition or reconstruction applications and following through with the issuance of demolition or reconstruction permits, city building and safety division employees have accepted at face value the representations of those applicants that they have adhered to state and federal asbestos-handling protocols and are employing licensed asbestos abatement specialists who, presumably, will adhere to those protocols. That is, upon the applicants’ checking of the box on the application pertaining to the proper handling and disposal of asbestos and asbestos-containing materials, city officials make no further determination of the veracity of that certification nor do they engage in follow-up inspections of the work site to verify those protocols are being adhered to.
In some known cases of home/structure makeovers in Big Bear Lake, the asbestos-handling specialists working on those projects, and thus by extension the applicants and/or their designated contractors, did not adhere to the protocol.
This, perhaps, would have gone unremarked and unknown for some time were it not for the observations of landowners or residents living proximate to those projects. In at least a few of those cases, the violation of the correct asbestos-handling procedure was grossly apparent, with what was recognized as asbestos or asbestos-containing materials or suspected asbestos-containing materials lying on the ground or openly discarded in the area immediately outside the structures where the work was ongoing. In some cases, the building materials that had been removed and placed outside were covered with plastic tarps. Some of the tarps would eventually be partially or fully displaced, leaving the materials exposed to the open air. Similarly, the windows and doors of structures where renovations were taking place internally at times were left open while asbestos-containing materials were being deconstructed, removed or in some fashion disturbed, allowing friable particles to escape.
In some cases, nearby residents used cameras, ones capable of capturing stills and video, to document what was occurring. Those photos and videos provided evidence, which when combined with materials analysis performed at more than one of the sites around Big Bear Lake where these renovation projects are ongoing, resulted in the Air Quality Management District initiating action which caused permits issued by the city to be rescinded, at least until measures and precautions are brought to bear which will prevent asbestos fibers from going airborne and becoming a threat to the wellbeing of nearby residents.
In particular, photographic documentation of what was ongoing at a home at 39429 Point Road indicates asbestos or asbestos-laden materials were being removed from that structure as a consequence of a renovation project. While some of the photos appear to show that some order of precautions were being taken, at least when those particular photograph were shot, others offer evidence that at other times the safety protocols were being disregarded.
The photographs indicate that a company, MBE Environmental Abatement Services of Fontana, was/is involved in the handling/disposal/disposition of the asbestos-related materials. Photographs show that warning signs were posted on the structure in preparation for what was to be either renovation or demolition. In some of those photographs, the entrances and windows appear to be closed, sealed or covered, which appears to be consistent with the applicable asbestos/asbestos-containing material protocol. Other photographs, however, show what are MBE employees – identifiable as such because of their T-shirts emblazoned with the large letters MBE – working on the property in question without safety suits or respirators side-by-side with others who are wearing and utilizing protective gear including respirators. There are other photographs showing the structure bearing the asbestos warning signs with its windows fully open. There are photographs showing what appear to be materials from inside the structure strewn about the outside the structure. In some other photos, it appears that tarps of some sort, quite possibly plastic, have been placed over the debris taken from inside the house that was lying on the ground.
More than any other consideration, the manner in which the MBE employees – or some of them – were working in proximity to asbestos or asbestos-containing materials with utter disregard for their own safety created alarm a certain subset of Big Bear Lake residents. MBE, they noted, was being entrusted by the property owner and the city to ensure that safety standards with regard to the handling of the asbestos and asbestos-containing materials were being observed such that no harm would come to the landowner or his neighbors or anyone downwind of the project site where the friable fibers might remain airborne and reach. How realistic was it to expect MBE to meet those expectations if the company was not ensuring that its own employees complied with safety precautions to protect themselves, those residents asked.
Another troubling consideration growing out of the circumstance relates to MBE’s use of U-Haul vehicles to cart off some of the asbestos-laden material. The Sentinel is informed that after MBE employees were observed loading the suspect material into rented U-Haul vehicles, the U-Haul company was contacted by Big Bear Lake residents who supplied the serial numbers of those rented vehicles to the U-Haul company and informed U-Haul that they had been utilized to transport asbestos-bearing materials. U-Haul then felt itself obliged to discontinue leasing those vehicles to the public until an abatement of the asbestos traces and fibers from those vehicles could be effectuated.”
The cavalier way in which asbestos hazards growing out of structure demolitions and renovations in Big Bear Lake were being dealt with was noted by y multiple residents in the city. Believing that the violations of the standard procedures for handling and disposing of asbestos and materials containing it were taking place, essentially, without the knowledge of the responsible city employees in the building and safety division or in unknown defiance of their authority, some made inquiries at City Hall. Armed with both photographic and videographic evidence, they informed those most logically empowered to look into the matter of what they had observed offering evidence. When those residents followed up with inquiries as to what monitoring City Hall – through its building and safety, planning and community development departments and divisions – was making of those situations, they were met with, the Sentinel was told, less than reassuring responses that city officials were on top of what was occurring. According to those residents who spoke with the Sentinel, they utilized the California Public Records Act to obtain from the city information they deemed relevant to the matter, relating particularly to the demolition and renovation projects that had previously been, or were in the process of being, undertaking.
Under the California Public Records Act, governmental entities or agencies are supposed to respond to a request within 10 days of receipt with the information requested or indicate that the request seeks information or public records that is exempt from disclosure under California law, such that the request will not be complied with. If an agency or governmental entity states the request will not be complied with, it must cite the reasons for the determination that the records will not be disclosed. If unusual circumstances arise or there is a legitimate reason why the documents or information requested is not immediately available, such as the need to search for and collect records from separate facilities or examine a voluminous amount of records or retrieve the material from archives that are not easily accessible, the response time may be extended by up to 14 additional days.
Big Bear Lake officials, while making no claim that the information, records and documents being sought were exempt from disclosure, were not forthcoming with the materials and information requested, providing what one resident characterized as “non-responses.”
Stymied but undeterred, the residents escalated the matter to the next level, alerting the South Coast Air Quality Management District as to what they had observed.
Ongoing at that point was the demolition of a home located at 39403 Point Road. With another governmental agency making the inquiries, city officials proved far more forthcoming than they had when city residents without any official governmental status had sought information about the city’s permitting processes relating to such projects. While the city had indeed issued a permit for the demolition to proceed at the 39403 Point Road location, officials with the AQMD learned, the permit had been issued without there having first been a survey to determine if there was asbestos in the structure or on the property. According to reliable sources, an official with the South Coast Air Quality Management District ordered that the already initiated demolition be put on hold and the structure itself be sealed to prevent any air flow for inside to outside to take place. The demolition effort was discontinued for 15 days while the survey was done, belatedly. In the case of 39403 Point Road, the Sentinel is informed, it was determined that there was no asbestos or asbestos-containing material on the property or within the structure, and the project was allowed to proceed.
Despite that positive outcome, officials with the South Coast Air Quality Management District had been alerted to the consideration that upon receiving applications for demolition project or renovation project permits, city employees in the building and safety, planning and community development departments and divisions did not carry out the requisite asbestos surveys or assure that some other qualified party did before the destruction or retrofitting of structures began. Instead, it was the conclusion of the AQMD that the city was being less than fully diligent with regard to ensuring asbestos handling protocols were adhered to and were instead trusting either landowners, contractors or abatement companies to carry out inspections to prevent nearby residents from being exposed to asbestos hazards.
Consequently and somewhat embarrassingly for Big Bear Lake officials, in moves that either or both bypassed or superseded municipal authority, the South Coast Air Quality Management moved in and shut down ongoing demolition/reconstruction/makeover projects in Big Bear Lake that were being undertaken in accordance with city-issued permits.
One such example is the demolition project at 39429 Point Road.
The city issued a demolition permit for 39429 Point Road, after which work on tearing the structure down began. At that point, the city had granted the project “inspection phase” status, meaning that city officials would allow the work to proceed, and that the property was subject to inspection as certain milestones in the demolishing were met. The work began, but the South Coast Air Quality Management District soon inserted itself into the situation, whereupon an order to halt the work was given. The city, obediently in the face of the SCAQMD weighing in, rescinded the permit. At the same time, one city official, in response to inquiries from alarmed neighbors, issued a statement that the demolition permit would not be reinstated until city staff could confirm the applicant was conforming to the requirements set forth by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. This was a tacit admission that the demolition permit at 39429 Point Road had been issued by the city prior to the building and safety division confirming the applicant conformed to the requirements and regulations pertaining to the handling of asbestos and asbestos-laden materials.
Residents were both baffled and troubled by the manner in which city officials’ comported themselves when the issue of potential asbestos contamination in their midst was raised. An initial interpretation was that city officials were convinced that the occurrence of asbestos as an insulation or building material was sufficiently infrequent that it did not merit the layers of bureaucratic attention that a minority of city residents considered prudent. City staff’s nonchalant attitude toward inquiries and public records requests appeared to be driven by that orientation.
In the area around the lake, windiness is not uncommon, however, and residents sensitized to the issue – ones who had family members battling mesotheleoma or were themselves previously exposed or were or are knowledgeable about its hazards – wanted assurances that demolition or renovation projects were being done by the book and that if the sites involved asbestos and/or asbestos-containing materials, they would be removed professionally and properly.
It was thus imperative, those residents felt, that the city respond promptly and fully to the California Public Records Act requests that were submitted. Residents knew an immediate response was entirely possible, given that the permit applications in virtually every case had been filed with the city within what would be deemed a relatively recent timeframe and would be reposited into an open file kept by the city’s building and safety division for ongoing projects, such that the sought after documentation could have been produced by a quick search of a known physical file cabinet at City Hall or through no more than a half-dozen or dozen combined entries of an address on a computer keyboard and clicks of a mouse. There were three phases of responses from city officials with regard to public records requests, residents noted. In the first phase, city officials would stonewall. In the second phase, following the involvement of the Air Quality Management District, the city would disgorge the sought after documents. In the aftermath of residents making an issue out of the non-responses to previous public records requests and involving the AQMD, which entailed city officials conferring with the city attorney’s office, including both City Attorney Stephen Deitsch and Assistant City Attorney Albert Maldonado of the law firm of Best Best & Krieger, a third phase has evolved in which residents making a public records request are dealt with not by a staff member who produces the sought-after documents or records but a member of the Best Best & Krieger law firm, usually Maldonado, who refers the question to the Air Quality Management District.
This third evolutionary phase in how Big Bear Lake officials respond to California Records Act requests relating to asbestos has become a compounded sore spot for those Big Bear Lake residents animated about the asbestos issue. When the California Records Act request is lodged with the Southern California AQMD, a response is returned in which the individual making the inquiry is informed that applications for demolition permits are not filed with the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the SCAQMD does not have the documents sought, whereupon the inquirer is referred back to the city.
In at least one known case, after a Big Bear Lake resident who was told by a city official to obtain all records relating to a demolition project in the city from the South Coast Air Quality Management District through the California Public Records Act process told a member of the Air Quality Management District she had been referred to the AQMD, a South Coast Air Quality Management District employee drove to Big Bear Lake to determine why the city was not providing residents with the documents as requested, and to intercede by obtaining the requested information and passing along to the resident. The South Coast Air Quality Management District employee went to Big Bear Lake City Hall on a Friday, only to be told by the limited staff on hand that there was no staff available to assist in locating the records. This episode, it appears, has convinced SCAQMD staff, which previously was collectively somewhat skeptical about citizen reports regarding how averse Big Bear Lake officials are to disclosure relating to demolition projects.
There is a perception among those Big Bear Lake residents who have interacted with city officials regarding the asbestos contamination issue that city officials have retreat into a defensive posture in which they are hiding behind the city’s lawyers because the manner in which the city has conducted itself in recent years with regard to demolition/refurbishment projects and asbestos hazards has created potential liability city officials are trying to avert. This explains, they say, why the city is not forthcoming with information relating to such projects and does not want documentation about those projects available to the public at large.
Said one city resident, “Pushing this off on the South Coast Air Quality Management District is a poor excuse for the city not providing me the documents they had in their possession when I requested them through the public records request system.”
The Sentinel since February made repeated telephonic efforts to obtain from Big Bear Lake City Manager Erik Sund and assistant city managers Erica Stephenson and Sean Sullivan the city’s version of events relating to the difficulty the city’s residents concerned about airborne asbestos fibers emanating from structure demolition and reconstruction sites have had in obtaining information they believe they need to protect themselves and their families. In no case was the Sentinel able to reach Sund, Stephenson or Sullivan directly and, despite assurances from their underlings that Sund, Stephenson or Sullivan would return the calls, that did not occur. On February 27, the Sentinel sent an identical email to Sund, Stephenson and Sullivan which delved into what appeared to be the relevant issues pertaining to the perception of asbestos contamination within the city. Questions posed by the Sentinel touched on:
* The proliferation of homes, cabins and structures within Big Bear Lake City Limits extant since the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s that contain asbestos;
* The extent of renovations/rebuilds/demolitions ongoing in the city.
* Whether asbestos surveys are completed prior to the granting of demolition renovation permits;
* Whether the city’s employees within the building and safety division, in circumstances in which structures containing asbestos are being renovated, worked on or razed, essentially deferred to the contractor or property owner carrying out the work to verify that the contractor employs or was using a subcontractor who is qualified and licensed to perform asbestos abatement;
* What verification the city does to ensure that the protocols in dealing with asbestos have been followed at such project sites;
* Whether photographic and videographic evidence that asbestos abatement companies employed in Big Bear Lake were subjecting their own employees to asbestos hazards gave them pause;
* The perception among at least some members of the Big Bear Lake community that City Hall was not faithfully abiding by its responsibility in ensuring that the asbestos handling protocols in place are honored;
* Whether the city, as some residents alleged, simply deferred to the landowner/contractor with regard to the proper/responsible handling of asbestos-related materials during such demolition/refurbishment projects;
* What steps city officials take to make sure those dealing with the asbestos-bearing materials handle them in a way that they do not constitute a threat to the health of those involved in the project, those nearby and the public in general;
* What recourse residents have if those contracting to demolish and refurbish structures in Big Bear Lake fail to abide by asbestos-related safety protocols?
* The city’s delays in responding to or altogether stonewalling of public records requests relating to how the asbestos-handling protocol is being ensured/managed by the city;
* A generalized impression among those who are stirred up by the issue that the city has fallen down with regard to monitoring the asbestos hazard in Big Bear Lake;
* Whether they considered those who are animated about the asbestos danger circumstance in Big Bear Lake to be unduly alarmist;
* If, given the proliferation of asbestos in building materials prior to the 1980s, it is unrealistic to think that the city can stay on top of every example of asbestos contamination in the city; and
* Whether city officials had become, over the preceding six months to a year, sensitized to the need to be more vigilant with regard to asbestos-contamination in the community.
Neither Sund, Stephenson nor Sullivan responded to the Sentinel’s email.
After a one-month interim while anticipating a response to the email, the Sentinel resumed its efforts at making telephonic contact with city officials responsible for or knowledgeable about policy relating to asbestos contamination and the handling/disposing of asbestos-containing materials. When those calls did not succeed, the Sentinel this week contacted Big Bear Lake Mayor Randall Putz and Councilwoman/immediate past Mayor Perri Melnick seeking from them their intercession with city management to get a response to the Sentinel’s February 27 email to Sund, Stephenson and Sullivan. No response was forthcoming.
Suggestions were made that the reluctance on the part of Big Bear Lake city officials to engage with the public or the press with regard to the asbestos hazard issues was rooted in caution on their part with regard to legal liability relating to the city’s negligence in failing to ensure the asbestos-handling protocols were observed by those engaging in demolition or refurbishing projects involving structures in which asbestos-containing materials were involved, and that any statement or statements made with regard to the issue could complicate the city’s position in the event that lawsuits pertaining to such allegations of negligence or misfeasance are lodged against the city. For that reason, the Sentinel today sent an email to Big Bear Lake City Attorney Stephen Deitsch, asking if a dialogue between the Sentinel and city officials relating to this asbestos contamination within the city and the handling of asbestos-laden materials could be structured that would allow the Sentinel to deal with the topic journalistically and publish an informative article or set of articles and simultaneously see to it that the city was protected from a legal standpoint. The Sentinel asked if Deitsch could arrange such an exchange. There was no response.
A city employee, perhaps speaking out of school, said that as far as structure demolitions in the city go, any asbestos abatement is up to the contractor and the city does not follow up to verify that the abatement was properly handled.