NEDERLAND — For a few moments, Doug Armitage and Barbara Hardt felt relief. On February 6, they were the first Nederland residents to pass through the fence guarding the Caribou Village shopping center, now reduced to several piles of twisted debris in the parking lot and a blackened husk holding the remains of the businesses that once filled it.
They were accompanied by the Boulder County sheriff, a mental health professional and a representative from Tebo Properties, which owns the building that caught fire in the predawn hours of October 9. And after they’d gotten to peer inside the shell of their business, Brightwood Music — but not go in, because that was too dangerous — Hardt, who is editor-in-chief of Nederland’s Mountain-Ear newspaper, wrote on Facebook: “Today, the healing can begin… we stood.. And we breathed deep breaths. And we walked out hand in hand. And the cracks in our hearts can start to mend.”
Armitage later told The Colorado Sun a version of the same sentiment. But, he added, it would be nice if Tebo Properties and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment would “stop pissing over the fence at each other” so the cleanup could begin.
A conflict deconstructed
A debate between CDPHE and Tebo over what needs to be done before Tebo can remove the burned building may have inched forward on February 13. That’s when CDPHE approved a site stabilization plan that will allow Tebo to test the entire 30,000-square-foot structure and debris for asbestos.
“It isn’t demolition or cleanup because workers do not actually remove debris from the site,” said Kaitlin Malloy, a CDPHE spokesperson. “Instead, it involves bringing unstable beams down to the ground or creating pathways in the debris for additional testing.” It also includes safety precautions for workers such as using personal protective equipment and wetting the debris to prevent the spread of ash or dust that may contain harmful chemicals, she said.
Some testing had already been done by February 13, although Tebo and CDPHE were at odds over whether it was enough. More than 80 samples of the charred debris had been tested and results showed none indicated a presence of asbestos. Tebo, one of the commercial property owners in Boulder County, believed this was sufficient for the state to let them start demolition without treating the site as if it is contaminated.
But Malloy said Tebo’s samples only showed the results for about 20% of the site. The building was constructed in 1985, before federal limits on the use of asbestos. “And the industry standard after a commercial fire like this is to treat the site as though asbestos is present so that cleanup can begin immediately, while protecting workers and the nearby community,” she said.
Michael Ogletree, air quality executive at CDPHE, said “historically, not every single one, but most, (commercial buildings) have been treated as asbestos containing. So it really hasn’t come up in other issues where a contractor tried to find a way to sample everything to be able to ensure that it’s asbestos free in similar incidences or similar occurrences.”
Tebo spokesperson Bill Rigler has called this abundance of caution “hogwash,” and said it would take more than $1 million to follow procedures for demolition of a building that “might” contain asbestos. Tebo declined to provide a written estimate or say if insurance would cover the cost. But Rigler mentioned something he found curious in their interactions with CDPHE.
A magnesium chloride question
Early on, the agency asked Tebo to spray the site with magnesium chloride, commonly used in asbestos industry cleanup processes for coating building debris after events like a fire. It’s effective in reducing dust or ash emissions during wind events but some studies have shown it can be harmful to soil and aquatic ecosystems in high concentrations.
Rigler said both Tebo and the town of Nederland “were like ‘absolutely not. We’re not going to have that stuff run off into (Barker Reservoir) and into the Boulder Creek system.’”
Jonathan Cain, Nederland’s town manager, confirmed this, adding, “anytime someone says mag chloride in Nederland, it sets off alarm bells. We don’t even use it on our roads. So it’s just been one of these things that’s been sensitive — trying to figure out what the impact of these chemicals are on Boulder Creek, which the city of Boulder also cares about quite a bit.”
Rigler said that was a “several-week back and forth” issue which CDPHE ultimately let pass. Malloy said even though mag chloride “is considered safe for use in debris coating purposes … we offered for them to use plain water as an alternative for wetting purposes.” CDPHE was “seeking to support Tebo and the Town of Nederland in their decisions on how to address the clean up,” she added. “Although not quite as effective, plain water is an acceptable alternative for debris wetting for this project.”
But that didn’t address the issue of Tebo needing to do more testing before the state could deem the building asbestos free and allow the company to remove the massive piles of debris accordingly. Rigler called the situation — with the state wanting more testing but deeming the building too unsafe to enter to do more testing — “a catch-22 or a chicken and egg.”
Dismantling the building as if it contained asbestos would have required Tebo outfitting workers in protective gear and carting the debris to a state-certified landfill in trucks outfitted to keep asbestos from escaping, Ogletree said.
But Tebo went the testing route, requiring site stabilization and after their cleanup consultant requested some minor changes to the plan CDPHE approved on February 13, they were ready to start the process on February 17.
Except it’s Nederland, which is notoriously windy, and “it was the 60th day since the fire that winds (had) exceeded 50 miles per hour or more,” Rigler said.
Nederland weather impedes progress
Actually, winds on Tuesday gusted to around 40 mph and they’ve only reached 50 mph 30 times since October 9, the day the shopping center burned, according to Predict Wind historical data. But gusts hit 80 mph on December 9 and 74 mph on December 19, and the National Weather Service issued a high-wind warning for the Nederland area with gusts up to 75 mph forecasted for last Monday into Tuesday.
The hurricane-force winds in mid-December prompted Boulder County public health officials to warn Nederland residents that debris from the fire could become airborne and to advise people with respiratory conditions to leave the area. They also advised people to avoid disturbing ash or debris, to remove their shoes before going into their homes and to wear N95 masks outdoors.
The repeated high wind days “underscores the urgency to not have an uncovered, untreated ash heap in that site,” Rigler said.
But a crew from Earth Services and Abatement was able to start the site stabilization process on Wednesday and finished Friday, and Malloy said Tebo’s consultant estimated a new supplemental sampling plan would be submitted to CDPHE for review within one week. If CDPHE approves Tebo’s sampling plan, Rigler says testing will be “pretty quick.”
“A methodology of healing”
Ogletree said if approval happens and Tebo undertakes the second round of sampling, CDPHE will “look at what next steps would be.”
“I say ‘what next steps would be’ because it’s unclear to us if they’ll be able to fully access all of the different areas of the site, to be able to sample in such a way that it would show that the entire structure was asbestos free.”
If Tebo can take the “hundreds of samples” Rigler says they intend to, in all of the places CDPHE says they need to, the real estate company will decide what to do next: If asbestos is present, they’ll have to wrap and roll. If not, they’ll be able to scrape the debris from the site and begin building a new and improved Caribou Village.
The whole experience has caused Cain to do some serious reflection: “I think this is one of the most impactful things that ever happened in Nederland, and I can’t think of a more scary event in my life, or something that has been more complicated to try to figure out as we’ve worked through it. And for me, just not seeing that building standing there means we’re moving and that there’s a path forward. There’s a methodology to get to healing.”
But on Tuesday, Hardt sent a text from Isla, Mexico, where she and Armitage were “starting our healing elsewhere … as it should be … so we don’t have to see them taking it away …
“We’d love to come back to a clean space … but we know that’s not the case. Tebo is still refusing to treat it as an asbestos site. If he did, the clean-up would really begin.”
