A lot has been written in the media, and on social media, about the proposal to search the Prairie Green Landfill for the victims of Jeremy Skibicki. It is believed that the bodies of at least two, and possibly more than two, victims of this horrendous individual may be found in the landfill and as a consequence a report “Landfill Search Feasibility Study Committee, Final report of the Technical Subcommittee” (Feasibility Report) was prepared on the feasibility of searching the landfill for the victims. As a parent I can’t imagine the anguish of not knowing whether your child is in that place but as a risk professional I think it is important that any discussion of the feasibility of such a search be grounded in risk science.

Looking at the list of contributors to the report, the professionals I see missing are anyone who may have experience with the handling of asbestos containing materials (ACMs). I note the presence of two professionals from “Waste Connections Canada” but a look at their website highlights that they are specialists in “non-hazardous solid waste collection” and not ACMs.

As someone with professional experience dealing with ACMs, I think it is important to expand on the risks with handling ACMs in a straightforward manner to inform the discussion on the feasibility of any search. The following is a discussion that deals only with the ACM component of the project. There are many more considerations involving reconciliation etc. that I will not cover because they are not in my area of expertise.

Let’s start with the basics of asbestos. Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral fiber. It occurs in various forms and due to its unique chemical characteristics was used in hundreds of building materials including insulation and fireproofing until it was discovered to be incredibly harmful and dangerous and was banned for these uses in the late 1980’s.

Asbestos can be found in two major forms: friable and non-friable. Friable asbestos is defined as fibres in a material in a form that can be aerosolised when crumbled and is powdery in nature. When crushed it forms a dangerous dust that can be inhaled and when inhaled greatly increases risks of mesothelioma, lung cancer and pleural thickening. It is so dangerous that it has its own special procedures for handling by occupational health and safety authorities and to this day mesothelioma is the biggest industrial killer in Canada.

Only specially trained individuals are allowed to manage friable asbestos and when they do so it has to be in enclosed spaces where everyone is wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and with careful and ongoing air treatment and monitoring. During asbestos clean-ups all the resulting waste (and PPE) must be sealed in plastic (double bagged in plastic bags) and then carefully transported to a small number of landfills equipped to handle the material.

ACM shippers can’t just ship their waste anywhere. Asbestos waste is only allowed at selected landfills and shippers have to warn the landfill they are coming so the landfill can prepare a location (a landfill cell) where the bagged material can be deposited and then immediately covered with other material. The cell, once complete, would then be capped with clay or silt to prevent the release of fibres when (when not if) the ACM-containing plastic bags burst under compaction. Sealed in a landfill, under a layer of silt or clay, the asbestos is safe unless someone disturbs the cell containing the ACM.

In the case of the Prairie Green Landfill, we are informed that at least 700 tonnes of ACM are in the section of the landfill that needs to be excavated. Therein lies the problem. In order to search the landfill the previously sealed ACM needs to be dug up and when it is dug up the friable asbestos risks being released. This will turn it into a risk to searchers and any community downwind of the search area.

The plan, as described in the Feasibility Report, involves excavating the section of the landfill; putting that material on a conveyor belt where it will be moved to an area where the soils will be screened; and then the screened materials searched for remains. Every step of this process poses massive risks in a situation where friable ACMs are involved.

As I noted previously, the ACMs were transported to the facility in plastic bags. Those plastic bags would absolutely have burst when the landfill machinery compacted the affected cells. By design they will have burst beneath a cap of silt or clay which will then become embedded with ACMs and will become a larger risk in their own right.

The Feasibility Report suggests that water can be used to reduce the generation of fibres but that is a bit of a misstatement. Water reduces the dust risk but doesn’t eliminate that risk and the amount of water needed to keep the asbestos fibres down to a relatively safe level will be too much to allow for the operation of any of the equipment needed to move or sieve the material. Essentially, the entire mess would need to be turned into a slurry to keep the dust down and the conveyor system and sieves don’t work for slurries. Moreover, the material would need to be kept wet forever because the second it dries the friable asbestos will dry up and be capable of being released into the air.

For a mental image, imagine that the asbestos was sawdust. When you shovel raw sawdust it puffs out everywhere. You can wet it to reduce the dust risk but when it dries it gets everywhere again. Put sawdust on a conveyor belt and it will generate more dust, run sawdust through a sieve and more dust is given off. Now imagine that every single particle of dust could cause a searcher, or a member of the downwind community, to get mesothelioma and die.

To understand the risks recognize that the way they initially realized how dangerous asbestos was to humans was the fact that families of asbestos workers kept dying of mesothelioma, simply from the dust brought home on workers’ clothes. There is no tolerable dose of asbestos, every inhaled particle increases the risk of mesothelioma and death.

Moreover, as I noted before, every step of the process increases the volume of contaminated material. Initially only the bagged material was ACM. Then the bagged material, the fill around the burst bags and the sealant on top became ACM through compaction. Finally, the process of mixing the material would result in any pile coming in contact with the earlier material being contaminated with asbestos. Arguably, at the end of the process some 60,000 -70,000 tonnes of material mixed and moved during the search would then be contaminated with fine asbestos that, once dry, could become airborne and become a risk to anyone who inhaled generated dust. The entire pile would become a massive pile of ACM that needed separate treatment.

Ultimately, none of the plans I have read, to date, come close to addressing the multiple stages of risk posed by the search. Starting with the excavator operator opening up the individual cells; to the transportation to the conveyor belt; to movement along the conveyor belt; to separation through the sieve; and then the management of the resulting 70,000 tonnes of potential waste. Every step of this process has inherent risk that is simply not addressed by wearing PPE and keeping the material wet.

Given the information above, I cannot fathom a scenario where a responsible government would authorize a search of the landfill without a better and comprehensive safety plan plan in place. While not searching the landfill will undoubtedly cause harm, the plan to search the landfill has too many holes. It ignores too many risks. Any search done wrong runs the risk of exposing searchers and the community to unsafe levels of asbestos and to the potential of painful death. No responsible government could justify placing the searchers, and the community, at such risk even if the cause is both noble and right.