TRANSCRIPT, 29 May 2015
Andrew Kefford, Head of Asbestos Response Taskforce
Pilot Demolition and the Process
The advice the Taskforce took last year from a whole range of experts right around the country is there is no way that these houses can be fixed. The risks of asbestos exposure can be managed in the medium term but at the end of the day the only way to fix this problem is to knock them down.
Look we certainly understand the level of interest amongst the rest of the community in what we are about to start doing. I don’t think there’s anyone in Canberra who doesn’t know someone now who’s going to be affected by either being the owner of a house or being the neighbour of a house that we’re about to start pulling down.
It is an issue that people have understandable concerns about. One of our roles right from the start has been to provide education and information and advice so that people do understand what’s happening, what’s going on and what to expect and so that will continue to be a key part of what the Taskforce does. Of course the website remains the first point of information for a whole range of information about the scheme but of course we’ll continue to do discussions with the Community Councils, with our own forums, through the media and a whole range of other opportunities for people to ask questions to say, “I heard this is happening - is that right?” And really, as has been the case from the start, we’d encourage people to keep asking us questions because I’m sure if they’ve got it, there’s a whole other group of people in Canberra who are thinking it but haven’t asked it yet.
Well there’s really five stages - the first one is a planning and assessment stage followed by the site preparations then there’s the actual internal asbestos removal process. It’s only then that the machinery comes on site for the demolition and site remediation and then there’s a site shutdown process as they wrap up and move onto the next one.
Well really this is the process of obtaining all of the necessary regulatory approvals so the asbestos removal control plan, the demolition plan, the traffic management - all of the issues that go to ensuring that the work can be done safely. That takes three or four weeks for each house to work through all of those processes as well as getting the necessary approvals to actually pull down a house.
Setup really will involve fencing off the area so that it’s safe like any other building site in Canberra. There’ll be consideration of connections for power, a site shed for the workers but really it’s just the normal sorts of work you’d see on any building site in Canberra.
Well, this is really the key of the process where all of the remaining loose fill asbestos fibres are removed from the walls, from the ceiling space before we start knocking down the house. From the outside what people will see is perhaps plastic sheeting over the roof that’s designed to ensure that the negative air chamber can work and what that really means is no air can escape the house while this work’s going on. They might hear the noise of the negative air pump which runs the fans for the whole period but really most of this work will happen inside the house and not much will be able to be seen from the outside. The workers will go in and out of the house through a decontamination chamber. Inside they’ll be fully suited up to ensure their own safety but from the outside it will look at that point like not a lot is happening.
External demolition is actually the process of pulling down the house and at this point it will look a lot like any other knockdown process that happens. There will be a machine on site that will be actually pulling down the house and loading it into the special trucks for transport to the tip. There’ll be dust suppression to keep down the general dirt but remembering at this point all of the asbestos has already been removed or bonded to the structure. To ensure that it’s being done safely there’ll be an independent asbestos assessor on site there’ll be air monitors running on site to detect any fibres that might escape as well as supervision from WorkSafe to ensure that all of the work is being conducted safely.
Site remediation really is the process then of once the house has been removed ensuring that it’s left in a safe condition ready to be built on again. There’s a process too involving testing of the soil to make sure that all of the remnant asbestos has been removed from the soil as part of the demolition process. That’s really the process of pulling down the fence, making the site ready for sale or for reoccupation by the owners who are exercising their first right of refusal. Before that happens though there’ll be one final independent soil audit to ensure that the asbestos has been removed and that’s really the last step in removing the block from the register of affected properties and making it ready for occupation.