ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A citizens group filed a federal lawsuit Thursday seeking to stop the city of St. Louis and its airport authority from further using a disputed asbestos-removal technique to clear homes and businesses in the path of a new runway at Lambert Airport.
The Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in Washington sued on behalf of the Families for Asbestos Compliance, Testing and Safety - the people living or working near the demolished buildings in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton.
The citizens group asked the court to find the city in violation of federal environmental laws regulating asbestos removal and to halt the use of the ''wet method'' from any future demolition activities. The lawsuit also seeks soil and air testing, a remediation plan and civil penalties.
Deputy Airport Director Gerard Slay said Thursday he was disappointed in the lawsuit and that the city is confident its work practices and techniques ''were protective of public health, the environment and workers at the site.''
Asbestos is a hazardous material that can cause cancer and other diseases that may show up decades after the exposure occurs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 1,493 people died from asbestos exposure in 2000.
Under the ''wet method'' of asbestos removal, a building is sprayed with water as it is leveled. Theoretically, the water will prevent the microscopic asbestos fibers from being released into air or soil, though critics consider the technique unproven and dangerous.
The EPA's asbestos experts have denounced the technique, saying that once the asbestos dries, the wind can carry fibers long distances, exposing people near and far from the removal site.
The lawsuit contends the city and airport authority demolished more than 300 buildings using the illegal and experimental ''wet method'' of asbestos removal. It is permitted under certain exceptions, but the city didn't apply for any exceptions, said one of the group's attorneys, Richard Miller of Kansas City, Mo.
''What the city was doing was an environmental crime,'' he said.
Given the dangers, asbestos handling is rigidly controlled by the EPA. The federal Clean Air Act requires carefully removing asbestos by hand and disposing of it in hazardous waste sites.
Miller said the city used the wet demolition method without notifying the state or EPA, then later sought and got a year's waiver he maintains was inappropriately granted, and extended for another year.
''At this juncture, (citizens are) very afraid what they're being exposed to,'' said plaintiffs' attorney Bruce Morrison of St. Louis. ''They're unsure what is there.''
Slay said the wet method was used on 255 of the 1,488 homes demolished since the project began in 1999. More than 400 homes remain, but since July, the wet method has not been used, and won't be, until the issue is resolved, Slay said.
He said the airport had prior approval from St. Louis County and state and federal authorities to use the wet method.
In issuing an order last August barring the wet method, the EPA said the agency lacked data to say with certainty that it was completely safe in keeping individual asbestos fibers from becoming airborne.
As a result, the EPA rescinded an administrative order allowing the wet method.
In a letter Monday to the plaintiffs' attorneys, associate city attorney Mario Pandolfo Jr. urged postponement of a lawsuit, pending an EPA review on the city's demolition of a landscape building at the airport site using the wet method - due within weeks - and the agency's national evaluation of the method in general, expected at year's end.
Pandolfo and Slay said litigation would drain resources from fair buyout offers to remaining Bridgeton property owners.
