EPA's SHIFTING STAND

Although asbestos has faded from the front page, its removal continues at roughly the same pace, costing $3 billion to $4 billion a year the past decade, says Olin Jennings, a Columbia, N.J., consultant who has tracked asbestos-related spending. In addition to the $50 billion spent so far, Jennings predicts $50 billion more will be spent before the cleanup winds down in 20 years.

"It's steady industry, but it's not as lucrative as it once was because so many people jumped on the bandwagon. It not very competitive in the 1990s," he says.

Epidemiologists-doctors who study risks-are especially frustrated that asbestos spending has continued despite broad agreement among scientists that it's a waste of money. The folly is largely the result of a fear of lawsuits and bad advice from the Environmental Protection Agency in the early days of the asbestos scare, before scientists had enough evidence to judge the risks.

When the death toll to industrial workers from asbestos became clear, the EPA rushed to act. In 1979, the EPA published a book of guidance on asbestos, commonly called the Orange Book for the eye-catching color of its cover. It said the only permanent solution to asbestos in buildings was to take it out.

In 1983, the EPA issued an updated book, the Blue Book, which declared that removal was "always appropriate, never inappropriate."

That policy has been followed, more or less, ever since, despite backtracking by the EPA as scientific evidence accumulated that the dangers were not as great as feared.

In 1985, the EPA published the Purple Book, which emphasized "managing asbestos" rather than removing it.

In 1990, the EPA issued the Green Book, which said asbestos in schools and offices presented a low risk. It noted that improper asbestos removal could increase exposure by stirring up dust unnecessarily.

But the EPA has never made a dramatic announcement or an effort to reverse the multibillion-dollar asbestos effort that its early pronouncements sparked.

Congress passed the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act in 1986. It ordered school districts to locate all asbestos in their buildings and create a plan to manage it. It also imposed tight regulations on asbestos removal, raising costs and ensuring that the image of asbestos-removal workers in spacesuits would keep fears high.

Jennings estimate that 15% to 33% of spending on asbestos removal has been in schools. New York City schools have spent more than $100 million.

But starting in 1985, a flow of scientific studies began questioning the wisdom asbestos removal. The studies appeared in the most respected publications, including Science and the New England Journal of Medicine.