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$1 million price tag to remove asbestos from power plant
State orders city to seal building
By Lee Raynor
Editor
Posted: 11:15 PM Saturday Feb 11, 2006
City officials may be scrambling to find a forgotten pot of money after learning they may have to pay more than $1 million to get rid of asbestos in the old power plant on Manning Avenue.
The plant was closed years ago but crews continue to use areas of the building. Asbestos is stored in several rooms, much of it loose, some of it stuffed into crumbling cardboard boxes and torn garbage bags.
Until recently, when the state ordered the city to re-seal the building, broken windows allowed access to animals and children. Plywood now covers broken windows on the first floor.
“Kids could crawl in the windows, but the bigger issue is what happens when the roof or a wall falls in,” Public Services Director Scott Stevens told Kinston leaders during a retreat Saturday.
The roof is not leaking but it isn’t getting any better either, Stevens said.
“The question is, do we clean it up now or clean it up later,” he said.
Cleaning up the boiler in the plant will cost about $380,000. Getting all the asbestos out of the building is likely to cost at least $1 million.
“Asbestos is piled up in there, kids get in, somebody gets sick, are we subject to get sued,” Councilman Joe Tyson asked. “If we don’t go in there, it’s not a problem. The state’s OK with that.”
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A light shines in a room adjacent to
the area where asbestos is stored. |
But someone was in the building recently, and several city workers said they held a cookout there last week. A photograph taken recently showed a light burning in a room adjacent to one of the asbestos storage areas. The room was not sealed off from the area where the light was on. City trucks regularly come and go from the building.
The city has no plans to demolish the power plant, which Stevens said is structurally sound. It is listed in “Coastal Plain and Fancy,” a book spotlighting |
historical architecture, published by the Lenoir County Historical Association.
The original portion of the power plant was built in 1897, according to the book, and added to between 1925-30. It provided incandescent arc lighting to residents, and to 83 intersections in the city, at a cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
If the building were cleaned out, it would “make the most awesome museum or restaurant,” Bill Ellis, Kinston-Lenoir County Parks and Recreation Director, said.
The electric fund does not have the money to pay for clearing the asbestos, Stevens said. Electric rates would have to be raised by ½ percent to 1 percent to cover the cost.
The Neuse River runs at the back of the building where old transformers have been dumped.
Grant money might be available to help pay for the work, Pride of Kinston Director Adrian King said, but that would be predicated on the building’s future use.
“People in this town think about that building the way they do the railroad freight building,” King said. “It has intrinsic value.” |
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