It has been a difficult few months for opponents of the Sullivan Courthouse revitalization project. East Cambridge residents supporting the project have organized, and are rallying support ahead of a crucial City Council vote scheduled for September 9th. Misinformation about the project that had gone unchallenged for years has been exposed, politicians willing to lie to obstruct the project have been revealed, and opponents were dealt a major setback when the Cambridge Planning Board laid waste to some of the more disingenuous challenges to the project.

As the opposition has seen their arguments successfully confronted, they have retreated to ever more tenuous redoubts. Now, a new tactic has emerged where a few elected officials opposed to the current redevelopment plan have resorted to playing politics with resident safety in order to substitute their will for that of the Cambridge Planning Board and the residents of East Cambridge who’ve worked for years to make this project into the compromise it is today. While neighbors have different perspectives on LMP’s proposals, a glance at the East Cambridge Planning Team (ECPT) mailing list, a group not known for its love of development or the Courthouse project, reveals that even residents who strongly disagree with the current plan have legitimate concerns about the deteriorating state of the building, which is known to be filled with toxins. First, leader of the obstructionist camp State Representative Mike Connolly distributed and endorsed as “accurate information” several unsupported claims from DCAMM asserting that the derelict, asbestos-riddled Courthouse is perfectly safe deteriorating in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Then, City Council Member Quinton Zondervan echoed Connolly and introduced Mike’s letter at a July 30th City Council meeting. In asserting that the building is safe, these elected leaders are showing themselves to be out of touch with both Courthouse supporters and opponents in the neighborhood who see ample evidence for concern in their midst.

By offering three pages of evidence-free assertions and calling it “accurate information”, or characterizing documented incidents that continue to give residents concern for their safety as “rumors”, DCAMM, Rep. Connolly, and Councilor Zondervan are asking neighbors, “Who are you going to trust, us or your lying eyes?” In the interest of providing a common fact set upon which we can base an important community discussion, here’s a run down of the evidence neighbors are looking at that contradicts these recent unsupported safety claims.

The Sullivan Courthouse: Where is the Asbestos?

A report on the Courthouse produced for the city in 2014 by Todd McGrath, an independent consultant from MIT, explains that an independent environmental assessment found that that “virtually every surface” “within the voids of the walls” and “above the ceilings” had been contaminated over time due to the presence of Asbestos Containing Materials inside those spaces (Link to summary of report. See Page 13).

Anyone looking inside the Courthouse today can see that ceiling panels and walls have deteriorated away, likely due to the extreme heat, cold, and water in the building, making the “within the voids of the walls” and “above the ceilings” distinction that existed in 2014 meaningless in 2019. Every surface on every floor has had ample opportunity to be been contaminated after the ceiling and wall panels were compromised (See example photo).

Looking inside Courthouse today reveals rotted and missing ceiling and wall panels

With respect to Acting Fire Chief Mahoney, in his testimony to the City Council at the July 30th meeting he made several characterizations implying limited location and pervasiveness of asbestos in the building that are contradicted by environmental reports available to the city (page 13), which state that, in addition to the significant contamination described above, “asbestos was directly applied to all structural members (columns and beams); [and] asbestos “overspray” was found on all of the metal decks, concrete facade panels, behind paneling and walls, within concrete block cavities, and within shafts, chases, and conduits.”

Steam Leaks

The Courthouse’s steam pipes are located “within the voids of the walls” and “above the ceilings” where virtually every surface was contaminated.

On June 1st, 2019, the hot, pressurized water vapor that burst out of a broken steam pipe in the vicinity of the 16th floor would have almost certainly picked up any shred of dust in its path like a power washer, including asbestos contaminated particles that we know were “within the voids of the walls” and therefore directly in the path of the steam.

Local reporters and residents saw that the likely contaminated steam escaped the building at around the 16th floor and the ground floor and flowed into the neighborhood (see photos at links).

DCAMM, through Rep. Connolly, denied that the steam carried asbestos, and claimed that the incident “posed no hazard” to the neighborhood, but offered zero evidence to accompany that unsupported assertion. DCAMM and Rep. Connolly didn’t even try to explain how the steam could have possibly escaped the building without being contaminated. No tests were conducted to examine the contaminates that reports from inspectors and common sense suggest must have been in the path of the steam given what we know about the location of the steam pipes relative to the location of the asbestos contamination. Mike Connolly, who has demonstrated a casual relationship with the truth in his efforts to obstruct the proposed Courthouse redevelopment, characterized DCAMM’s statements as “accurate information.”

Flooding

Like the steam pipes, water pipes are located “within the voids of the walls” and “above the ceilings, while building sprinklers can touch most surfaces in the habitable spaces, all of which are likely contaminated today.

According to Cambridge’s Acting Fire Chief, winter-related water pipe bursts in Dec 2017, Jan 2018, and Jan 2019 each led to flooding in the basement (link to download statement).

Water flowing from anywhere in the building would pick up and carry the asbestos dust that likely contaminates every surface. Water leaking from upper floors above the basement on its way to the basement would have to travel behind walls and through ceiling spaces that are known to be contaminated, and would certainly have carried asbestos.

DCAMM denied through Mike Connolly that asbestos was “condensing” in the basement. It’s unclear what condensing has to do with anything, but any water leaking from within the building doubtless carried asbestos with it into the basement where it has accumulated. DCAMM to date has done no tests and offered no evidence of safety. Regardless, Rep. Connolly characterized DCAMM’s statements as “accurate information” despite being well aware of neighbor concerns and the relevant facts about the building.

On or about Jan 23rd, 2019, multiple residents reported a large amount of water running through Spring St. and Lopez Ave., immediately south of the Courthouse. Some residents ascribed the rushing water to pumping from the Courthouse, but it could have just been a very substantial leak from inside the Courthouse (pic, pic, video, resident email). This Jan 23rd flooding incident lines up with new neighbor complaints within a day or two about noise from an emergency generator installed after a major leak reportedly knocked out power to the building (resident email to ECPT from Jan 27th describing “several days” of new generator noise).

January 23rd, flooding from Courthouse in vicinity of Spring Street and Lopez Avenue, Cambridge, MA (long-term resident photo)

The Building Today

Despite being known to be contaminated with degrading asbestos, the building is not sealed. Aside from likely contaminated steam and water leaving the building, the building is missing windows (pic, pic). There is an entire room on the south side of the ground floor by Spring Street rotting inside and completely exposed to the air (pic). The entire “above the ceiling” area of this room that would have been contaminated with asbestos has been exposed to the neighborhood for who knows how many years, just dozens of yards from several homes and all the residents on the 30-block of Spring Street.

Interior room facing Spring Street, rotting, exposed, and constructed of the same asbestos containing materials as the rest of the building.

Aside from the conversation about asbestos, an investigation circa 2014 found dangerous, cancer-causing PCBs in 79 of 92 building materials tested (page 13). Many of those materials are likely rotting and turning to dust along with the asbestos containing materials.

The Acting Fire Chief has acknowledged that entering the building without appropriate protection is unsafe, but one only needs to connect a few dots to see that the same conditions that exist inside the building are also exposed to the outside of the building through leaks, open windows, unsealed rooms, and daily deteriorating conditions.

Neighbors have ample evidence and a solid chain of logic to say that the building poses a likely risk to the neighborhood. DCAMM has provided no evidence to contradict any of the above pictures, reports, or common sense about what happens to a condemned, contaminated, toxic skyscraper when it’s left to rot.

Playing Politics with Safety

Opponents of the Planning Board-endorsed plan for LMP to remediate the asbestos in the building and revitalize the Courthouse have sought to convince residents that a quick and simple new disposition process will take place if LMP loses the upcoming City Council vote on a parking lease in a city-owned garage scheduled for September 9th (link to The Connolly Plan, see page 2)

Most observers and many Members of the Cambridge Planning Board note that any new disposition process could easily take another five or even ten years just to get back to where we are today, which seems like a reasonable estimate considering that we’re now in roughly year nine of this current process (eleven years since the 2008 enabling legislation and seven since LMP won the bid).

Opponents of the LMP project benefit if they can convince residents and even City Council Members that the building can sit safely while a new five to ten year disposition process takes place, and it’s conspicuous that the politicians downplaying the demonstrable, deducible, and logical safety risks are all leading voices in the camp that wants to prevent LMP from moving forward.

This building has no HVAC, and will continue degrade as it festers in the summer and freezes in the winter. As Cambridge Planning Board members have said, the quickest path to removing the clear and present safety risks from the neighborhood and to bring this building back into compliance is to move forward with the current process by approving the First Street Garage lease.

East Cambridge residents concerned about asbestos in their neighborhood feel exactly the same way that Councillor Zondervan feels about asbestos in his.

August 9th, 2019 Facebook post from City Council Member Quinton Zondervan, just ten days after he dismissed East Cambridge residents’ concerns about asbestos as “rumors”