Asbestos won’t delay Palmerton school energy project

Representatives for the company working on an energy savings project in Palmerton Area School District said Tuesday that two locations of contained asbestos discovered last week at the high school should not significantly impact the timeline of window and door replacement work this summer.

Alyssa Wingenfield, account executive with the McClure Company, said the asbestos was located in the white caulk around the windows and in the cement board for the exterior soffit, where the wall and the roof meet.

“This is not a concern to students,” Wingenfield said. “The asbestos is not airborne and nothing will be disturbed during the school year so we don’t want anyone to be concerned about that. This is not uncommon to run into this when you have a renovation project, especially with an older building.”

The suspect asbestos was discovered during a site visit last week, with the tests confirming its existence being received earlier on Tuesday.

Palmerton is replacing just over 150 windows at the high school, and Wingenfield said the plan is to still get final pricing before the board on March 17.

ACM Associates, out of Allentown, will be joining Penn Builders Inc., the contractor in charge of the window and door replacement, on site Friday morning to go over the next steps in the process.

“They’re going to look at what’s involved, how to remediate and what can stay in place,” Wingenfield said. “When that information is determined, it will be brought back to the board.”

Wingenfield said it was too early in the process to take a guess at any remediation cost, but that amount should also be determined by the March 17 Palmerton board meeting.

“The team here is doing all the right things,” Wingenfield. “Once we have everything finalized, everyone will know what the plan is and how we plan to deal with this. There will be air testing before and after any remediation. The two locations are on the outside of the building, but of course all the precautions will be taken to make sure there is no impact to the inside.”

Remediation would take place during the summer when the building is unoccupied by students and staff, as would the window and door replacement.

“This doesn’t have to be scary,” Wingenfield said. “It will be a very safe remediation process.”

Palmer Project

Wingenfield also updated the board Tuesday on the status of an S.S. Palmer project planned for the summer that would move the existing office suite down a floor from its current location on the second level, and remove the large existing staircase that greets visitors upon entry to the building.

“We have met with the administration several times to review the interior layout,” she said. “We’re in the final steps of preparing the bid documents and hope to get that out to bid next week.”

The project would create a secure vestibule upon entry to the building.

In a slideshow presented to the school board, Jeff Straub, of Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates, estimated the entire Palmer vestibule project would cost $1.45 million.

Palmerton Superintendent Alan Lonoconus said the board will discuss whether it wants to push the start date for the 2020-21 school year back by a week or so to accommodate the project.