Asbestos finds itself on the newest Environmental Protection Agency’s list of high priority chemicals.

The naturally-occurring mineral, asbestos, has been used in the past in the manufacturing of flame-retardant materials as well as insulation materials.

It was in high usage in the earlier part of the 20^th century and is still found in countless buildings still in use.

Asbestos, one of the EPA’s high priority chemicals, becomes dangerous when it is disrupted and the fibers are released into the air. These fibers can be swallowed or inhaled and can lead to asbestos lung cancer.

These high priority chemicals, including asbestos, are the first chemicals that the EPA will look at for risks pertaining to environment and human health under a new law passed by Congress earlier this year.

This new law that governs high priority chemicals is called the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). High priority chemicals found in consumer products, excluding those found in food, drugs, cosmetics or pesticides, are regulated under TSCA.

The TSCA is an overhaul of previous federal chemical safety regulations.

Jim Jones, an assistant administrator with the Environmental Protection Agency said, “The old law put us in the position of, if we saw something that gave us concern, we could stop its entry into the market. It was somewhat of a defensive posture.”

Jones noted that the new law makes it necessary to make an affirmative finding that high priority chemicals are safe to go to market. According to Jones, the previous law was a lot weaker and didn’t give the EPA as much power to restrict unsafe chemicals.

Currently, the EPA is reviewing the first 10 of 90 potentially unsafe high priority chemicals, including asbestos. These have been chosen because of known hazards regarding the high priority chemicals.

Not only is asbestos being studied for its toxicity, but another one of the EPA’s high priority chemicals, 1,4-dioxane, is being examined as well.

1,4-dioxane is a likely human carcinogen and is present in groundwater. There is currently a 1,4-dioxane contamination situation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and this new classification by the EPA may affect the cleanup.

Jones stated that “[the safety review] certainly could influence [the cleanup] in the sense that the science that we’re going to develop to evaluate 1,4-dioxane would be completely relevant to a cleanup standard. It doesn’t create a cleanup standard per se but it would certainly be relevant to it.”

The new law makes it easier to do risk assessments on high priority chemicals like asbestos, according to Rebecca Meuninck, Deputy Director of the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor.

Regarding asbestos, in the 1990s there were attempts to ban asbestos, said Meuninck. “But [the] EPA couldn’t ban all uses of asbestos under [the] previous TSCA. Now, they are looking at asbestos again, and we are hopeful that they can really slam the door on this nasty chemical and get it out of commerce.”