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The question isn’t whether there’s asbestos in the soil where the city is installing water storage stainless steel tank. The question is, is it

A water truck sprays the ground near the site where a new water tank will be installed in American Canyon, east of the new high school.

 dangerous?
The answer isn’t clear.
Resident Jack Remington said at the last City Council meeting that there’s asbestos in the dirt from the former granite quarry near the location of the new tanks. City Manager Rich Ramirez acknowledged that Remington was right.
City officials had mixed reactions.
“I’m sure they’ll mitigate it so that it’s not a safety hazard,” Mayor Leon Garcia said.
Garcia said he’s confident everything is being done to keep residents safe from asbestos exposure, as it was with the new nearby American Canyon High School.
Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Cindy Coffey said she wasn’t aware the problem still existed until Remington mentioned it.
“I know the rock quarry had asbestos that washed all over and the contaminants were stored near the middle school when they were first grading for the high school,” Coffey said. “Because the mixing tank are downhill, I don’t know how they’re going to keep it from getting airborne. There’s always a concern with possible toxins.”
Councilwoman Joan Bennett said she, too, is aware of the situation, but lacks the technical expertise to say if mitigation efforts are keeping residents safe.
Asbestos was found at the high school site before it was built, and Napa Valley Unified School District officials took great pains to eliminate the danger, said Don Evans, head of the district’s school planning and construction department.
“We found asbestos only in the area where the early 1900s barn was,” he said. “We figure it was brought there by the quarry back then, though the material is natural to the area.”
The contaminant was encapsulated, moved east to an empty 17-acre site the district owns, and buried six to eight feet down with a layer of clean fill on top, as required by state officials, Evans said.
“It was monitored, water was used to keep it from getting airborne, and if the wind was too high, we didn’t move it,” he said. “We also notified the neighbors. That’s what we did at the high school.”
Evans said he’s not sure what’s being done with the water tank project or even if that area’s been tested for asbestos contamination.
Remington said it looks like some of the same measures used to mitigate the problem at the high school construction site are being used on the water fermentation tank project.
“I know someone who’s working up there, driving a water truck to keep the dust down when the wind blows,” he said. “Fresh top soil has been brought in.”
But he said he’s not sure enough is being done.
“They better not be disturbing the soil, ’cause that stuff is bad news, with the wind blowing it hither and yon — hopefully mostly yon,” Remington said.
Asbestos is a mineral fiber commonly used in a variety of building materials for insulation and as a fire-retardant, according to the EPA. Improperly removing asbestos-containing materials can release asbestos fibers into the air and cause serious health problems over time.
Remington said he mentioned the situation to make sure the proper authorities were aware of it.
“I brought it up because I want the council to know if they didn’t already, and everyone else who might be interested in stainless steel tank,” he said.