On Monday evening, the Town Meeting for officials in Somerset, Massachusetts passed a warrant item for funding repairs and asbestos removal for a local school.

Asbestos is a known carcinogen linked to asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a disease with a long latency period, meaning that many sufferers of the disease do not develop initial symptoms until decades after exposure to toxic asbestos.

The meeting ran exceptionally well, a fact that Town Administrator Dennis Luttrell attributed to a pool of exceptionally well-informed voters.

“I think it was a result of everything being well-vetted,” Luttrell said. “The budget was discussed in the open at selectmen’s meetings and people could read about it in the newspaper or watch it on television. It was a rigorous process.”

$750,000 in funding was approved for repairs to an aging school. $300,000 of that amount was budgeted specifically for the design and repair of the structure itself. The remaining $450,000 was allotted for asbestos abatement.

Those figures represent that highest possible number, but engineers will continue to negotiate with local contractors for a lower fee.

Asbestos will be removed only in areas where workers are present. Those areas will need to be sealed off to prevent the spread of asbestos fibers throughout the air of the building. Removing all the asbestos located beneath the building would be too expensive. Some reports have estimated that complete asbestos removal could cost as much as $2 million.

The asbestos removal planned for now is being done as part of an emergency repair on the building.

Since February 2008, a huge section of Somerset High School’s northwest wing has been shut down due to fears that the aging columns supporting that wing could collapse.

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