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By Amy Beth Graves

More than three years ago, Russell Banks bought a Trumbull County dairy that had been in foreclosure. He labored long and hard to clean up the rundown property and spent tens of thousands of dollars hauling away junk and debris from two silos and a barn that he had torn down.

Little did he know that tearing down and burning the late 1800s wooden barn with a tin roof would land him in trouble with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"The whole township was grateful that I had cleaned up the property; it was an awful place. It was such a shock to get in trouble for cleaning something up," Banks said.

The trouble started shortly after Banks had the barn demolished and pushed into a hole where the material was burned. Someone reported to authorities that the barn contained asbestos. An air pollution official visited the property and sent a report to the EPA about the asbestos claim. More than a year later Banks faced a fine of nearly $20,000.

The EPA regulates asbestos removal and disposal from all "facilities" in Ohio. According to Ohio law, an old barn or building on a farmer’s property falls under the definition of "facility," said Hannah Fout, Ohio Farm Bureau Federation’s (OFBF) legal researcher. According to Ohio Administrative Code, the EPA requires that "any facility must be inspected by an asbestos hazard evaluation specialist before the scheduled demolition or renovation takes place."

"If you’re going to tear down a building and it has any type of hazardous material, you need to make sure that you have a certified asbestos inspector go through it," Fout said.

Banks wasn’t aware of this EPA regulation and didn’t have any reason to think that there was any hazardous material in the barn. After the inspector left, he set out to clear his name and spent $5,500 on experts who combed the barn’s remains, looking for signs of asbestos. The report, which found no asbestos, was given to the air pollution official, and Banks thought the problem was over.

A year later, Banks received a letter from the EPA. He faced two fines: open burning within 1,000 feet of a neighbor, a $1,000 fine, and demolishing a building without having an asbestos inspector examine it, a fine of nearly $19,000.

"I sat in my truck and couldn’t believe it," Banks said. "I grew up in farm country and had seen barn after barn torn down and burned."

Banks contacted Ohio Farm Bureau last November for help before he met with the EPA. Fout and Larry Antosch, OFBF’s director of environmental policy, researched the issue.

After reviewing state law, Fout said farmers should considering having every old barn or building inspected by licensed asbestos hazard evaluation specialists. If they find that there is no asbestos on the property, farmers can continue with the demolition or renovation. If asbestos or asbestos containing materials are found within the structure, the landowner or contractor must contact the EPA director with a written notice of their intent to demolish or renovate the building, Fout said.

The landowner or contractor also must provide the agency with 16 additional pieces of information, including whether this is a demolition or renovation, an estimate of the amount of regulated asbestos-containing material to be removed and starting date of the demolition or renovation. The information must be postmarked and sent to the EPA 10 days before the demolition or renovation. An official from the EPA may then come out to the site.

Banks said that in the end the EPA reduced his fine to $9,000 because he had documentation of what the barn looked like before it was torn down and showed how dilapidated the property was. Plus he had hired experts after burning the barn to show that there was no hazardous material. He said he was surprised to find out that he could have been fined for taking down the two silos. While he had obtained a demolition permit for them, the permit didn’t cover asbestos removal.

"Farmers in this area were beside themselves over what happened to me," Banks said. "I want people to know what happened to me because I don’t want it to happen to anyone else."