November 28th, 2005

Work at Evansville State Hospital has been delayed and slowed down due to costly asbestos removal following the demolition of a number of old building on the site. The cost of the asbestos removal has come to double that expected by officials. Over five and a half million dollars has been spent on the cost of the asbestos removal following the building demolitions.

One official stated: "The unfortunate thing is that when they finished building these buildings, they didn't leave us a road map as to where the asbestos was. That just wasn't a requirement, so when we start in on these buildings, we have to start at one end and we just work through it."

Problems arose when a lot more asbestos than was originally suspected was found following the demolitions. In addition to this, contractors found that some of the asbestos was in areas from which it was more difficult and therefore time consuming to remove, including walls and ceilings.

The project is now set to proceed as approval for the works has been granted by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the US Environment Protection Agency.