Environmental company hit with $5,000 fine

Failing to properly remove asbestos from a Coquitlam home cost a Surrey-based company $5,000, according to WorkSafeBC documents.

In May, a WorkSafeBC inspector toured a 1940s wood-frame home with a stucco exterior on Dansey Avenue. The house had recently gone through asbestos abatement in preparation for demolition.

A previous report identified the stucco, vinyl sheet flooring and several other materials in the house as containing asbestos.

Besides not finding any workers on site, the inspector found no documentation, ventilation equipment or decontamination facility. There was no equipment that would be: “typical of an active asbestos abatement site,” according to a report from Prevention Field Services inspector Adewale Eniade.

Pulsar Environmental Ltd. provided an undated report that seemed to confirm the job had been completed and that a final inspection including air quality monitoring was conducted four days earlier. The report was credited to TBERD Consulting.

However, Eniade found vinyl sheet flooring in a basement washroom that “remained undisturbed,” according to the WorkSafeBC report.

The vinyl flooring had a layer of asbestos backing.

“The employer representative arrived at the work site a few minutes later and, at their request, I showed them the asbestos-containing vinyl sheet flooring still in the basement washroom,” Eniade wrote.

Eniade also shoed the employer a loose piece of asbestos-containing stucco he’d noticed on the ground outside the house.

Demolition of the house would have meant workers being exposure to airborne asbestos fibers, Eniade concluded.

There were “reasonable grounds to believe there is a high risk of serious injury, serious illness or death to a worker at this workplace,” according to the WorkSafeBC board.

The inspector issued a stop work order on May 18. Following a subsequent inspection on May 23, the inspector determined Pulsar Environmental had complied with the previous order.

The company was fined $5,000.