Turner Valley Gas Plant

Asbestos at the Turner Valley Gas Plant: It’s a Wrap!

Since the Turner Valley Gas Plant was first considered as a possible tourism destination, extensive asbestos abatement work has been carried out. In 1995, the cost of removing or containing it safely was estimated at $40,000 because the intent then was to open only four buildings to the public.

By the time the abatement work was done in 2002, the scope had expanded to 20 buildings plus a number of stand-alone items such as pipes and vessels.

Qualified contractors removed all seriously damaged asbestos, and where the damage was minor, wrapped it in aluminum or canvas, sealed it, and painted it so the plant would look as it had when it was last used.

The job also included removing some mercury and cleaning up biohazards, such as bird droppings, that had collected while the buildings sat abandoned.

The tab came in at $335,000, plus $22,000 for independent air monitoring and inspection.

There’s plenty of asbestos remaining both inside and outside many buildings on the site. But according to Colin Wildgrube, senior building environment specialist for the technical services branch of Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation, as long as it remains undisturbed and undamaged, it poses no risk to visitors.

For 25 years, the branch has been contributing the most up-to-date asbestos-handling procedures to the Alberta Asbestos Abatement Manual. It oversaw the removal and encapsulation of asbestos at the gas plant.

The manual is available for download from the publications page of the Employment, Immigration and Industry website (www.employment.alberta.ca) and typing "asbestos" into the search line. The manual specifies:

  • In buildings being altered or renovated, any materials having the potential for releasing asbestos fibres in the area of alteration or renovation must be encapsulated, enclosed or removed.
  • In buildings to be demolished, materials having the potential for releasing asbestos fibres must first be removed.

Since 2002, an asbestos management plan--required for any site containing asbestos--has called for a thorough annual inspection, which is done in the early spring to make sure any possible damage is repaired and the entire site is in a safe, sealed condition before public tours start.

"You could just keep rewrapping it. As long as it’s not severely damaged you could keep it indefinitely. There are lots of government buildings that have asbestos in them that are kept in good condition with a management plan." said Wildgrube.

Culture department restoration officer Ron Johnson does the inspections and oversees any needed repairs. This year he found insulation that had peeled off a tank in a small auxiliary building that had never even been unlocked before and had the repairs made. "The whole point is to get everything in tiptop condition," Wildgrube says. "Right now we’re comfortable with what’s being done there and we have no concerns."

Alberta Environment and the Calgary Health Region have advised that they have no concerns with asbestos at the site.