Bermuda’s $100m asbestos problem
Securing asbestos within all the Bermuda Government’s inventory of buildings comes with a total estimated price tag of just over $100 million, the House of Assembly heard this morning.
Lieutenant-Colonel David Burch, the Minister of Public Works, told MPs that the abatement costs would kick in when buildings with asbestos had to be knocked down or renovated.
He added that it “can be anticipated that all buildings built before 1970 will have asbestos in the flooring”, and warned that handling the expenses would require “a genuine balancing act in devoting funding to infrastructure improvement”.
Colonel Burch said the budget in most cases would be “cost prohibitive to tackle” without careful planning over “several fiscal years”, calling it “a risk management exercise”.
Asbestos, an inert naturally occurring mineral, was until recently used widely in construction for insulation and in roofing, walls and flooring.
Tiny fragments of the mineral were discovered to be toxic when free asbestos was breathed into the lungs.
Colonel Burch said asbestos inside the flooring of the Government’s buildings posed no health risk to occupants in terms of exposure, since the asbestos was held inside the structure — in “most cases”, locked up by additional layers of flooring added over the years.
He said the standard setting out the extent of the Government’s legal obligations, such as asbestos removal in retired buildings, had “not previously been recognised”.
The new public sector accounting standard came into force on April 1, 2022.
Colonel Burch said the new standard also had replaced the previous liability standards for the eventual closure of the island’s two publicly owned solid waste landfills.
He also highlighted the hundreds of shipping containers containing asbestos stacked at the government quarry in Hamilton Parish, which are awaiting disposal overseas at a total cost of $2.96 million.
The Government has about 370 containers with asbestos from the demolition of old buildings, some inherited from the former US Base at Southside.
Although some containers were found to be corroded, a report in 2013 by the Bermuda Ombudsman found no threat to public health from the material.
Colonel Burch said in the House that the Department of Public Lands and Buildings had come up with a figure of $16 per square foot for asbestos abatement, representing “approximately 6.4 per cent of the insured value of the buildings on record”.
He added that the total insurance budget for buildings in the government portfolio added up to $1,584 million.
Colonel Burch noted that the figure excluded buildings owned by the Berkeley Institute, Bermuda College, Bermuda Housing Corporation, the Bermuda Land Development Company, CedarBridge Academy, Port Royal Golf Course, Ocean View Golf Course and the West End Development Corporation — along with the insured value of the Dame Lois Browne-Evans police and court building in Hamilton.
He added that the estimated liability of identifying and abating asbestos in all government buildings added up to $101,389,778 — slightly more than the cost he recently estimated to cover the total refurbishment of Bermuda’s roads.
The island’s debt stood at $3.1 billion in the 2024-25 Pre-Budget Report.
The containers securing asbestos at the quarry are being sent overseas for disposal at a rate of $8,000 each. Colonel Burch said the job would take “up to ten years”.
He said it would eliminate all liability once the containers were shipped, since “the receiver has no rights to return the items to Bermuda”.
Colonel Burch said the Government owned two landfills: Marsh Folly in Pembroke, once used for the disposal of solid waste but switched over to composting about 30 years ago.
Marsh Folly has been earmarked for conversion to either a park or a nature reserve once composting comes to an end, but Colonel Burch said it was not expected over the next five to ten years, with no liability for the site “recognised at this time”.
The second landfill at the airport dump, used for land reclamation, remains in use and yields no recorded liability.
• To read Colonel Burch’s statement in full, look under “Related Media”.
