A company that knowingly demolished an asbestos-filled home before removing the hazardous materials — a significant violation of state and federal regulations — has been indefinitely banned from bidding within Detroit's demolition program, the Free Press has learned.

The Warren-based company, Den-Man Contractors, is facing mounting criticism, including a recent call for it to be permanently banned from city contracts, and is also the subject of an ongoing probe by the city's Office of Inspector General, an independent agency that investigates waste and fraud. The investigation was launched earlier this year after a litany of performance issues.

The improper demolition occurred at the direction of a now-former employee of the company, Dave MacDonald, who ignored emails from an abatement contractor that urged him to hold off, according to internal Detroit Building Authority documents obtained by the Free Press.

The demolition, which happened Sept. 13 at 14444 Flanders on the city's east side, has also raised concern among nearby residents who told the Free Press last week they were unaware of the incident and questioned why they weren't notified by the city. Detroit has no notification policy for such occurrences, despite similar incidents in recent years.

Just two homes remain on the entire block where the demolition occurred, one of which is vacant and fire-damaged. But several homes that are occupied by families, neighbors said, are within close proximity to the site.

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The neighborhood, which is near Chalmers and Houston Whittier, is heavily marked by blight.

With the exception of emergency demolitions, contractors are required to remove asbestos-containing materials prior to tearing down homes.

The incident has since sparked an investigation by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which confirmed that Den-Man violated five different sections of federal hazardous and environmental regulations, including: Failure to remove regulated asbestos containing materials and failure to properly dispose of the materials to a landfill that handles asbestos.

According to the MDEQ Dec. 7 violation notice, the company, as well as the Detroit Land Bank Authority, which owned the property, could face potential fines or enforcement actions.

But an MDEQ spokesperson said Thursday: "It is too soon to say because the violation is still pending a response."

The company "will most likely never work in the city's demolition program again," Detroit Building Authority Special Projects Manager Brian Farkas said, but no final determination has been made.

The company, as well as MacDonald, declined to comment on the incident Thursday.

The company has been placed on an indefinite stop work order within the program, costing it 93 properties or $2.3 million in awarded work.

The company has performed at least 584 city- or federally-funded Detroit Land Bank Authority demolitions, totaling more than $12.5 million, since 2014, when Mayor Mike Duggan first began his aggressive effort to tackle blight across the city.

DBA Deputy Director Thomas Fett wrote in an Oct. 30 report that the company, BBEK, slated to perform the abatement at 14444 Flanders sent emails to MacDonald and other Den-Man employees that clearly stated "on hold/bad survey" and "DO NOT WRECK," in capital letters.

"Please be advised that based on the ... facts, it appears that Den-Man Contractors, specifically Dave MacDonald, demolished the structure at 14444 Flanders knowingly without the property being abated," Fett wrote to his superior DBA Deputy Director Timothy Palazzolo. "... Due to the severity of what the facts seem to indicate, I did not contact Dave MacDonald to inquire about what he knows."

BBEK wanted to hold off on the abatement until it received a more recent environmental survey of the property, according to the report.

An initial 2016 environmental survey indicated that 110 linear feet of caulk existed throughout the exterior of the home, as well as 800 square feet of ceiling plasters in the basement and 50 feet of duct wrap -- all containing varying amounts of asbestos. The MDEQ said in its report that an additional 7,100 square feet of plaster was noted in the asbestos survey as containing trace amounts of asbestos.

The home also contained various hazardous materials including tires, paint cans and solvents. But despite the warning to not demolish the property, MacDonald proceeded anyway.

MacDonald, who oversaw Den-Man's demolition operations, left the company the next day.

The owner of the company, Dave Holman, admitted to Fett the property was likely not abated.

"I have no knowledge of any abatement work that was done prior to demolition," Holman said, according to the report. "I was unaware that this job was scheduled or completed until after Dave MacDonald had left."

In a sharply worded Nov. 6 email, Detroit Health Department Director Dr. Joneigh Khaldun ordered that any company that hired MacDonald in any demolition-related capacity would be banned from tearing down homes in the city. One company, Smalley Construction, hired MacDonald after the incident but fired him once the city placed them under a stop work order, city officials said.

"The demolition of homes that have not undergone proper abatement poses health and safety risks," Khaldun wrote to Land Bank and DBA leadership. "Such demolition(s) could also violate legal frameworks."

The city, which said it didn't become aware of the incident until late October during the review process of the demolition, self-reported the incident to the MDEQ.

Tammy Bell, MDEQ senior environmental quality analyst, said the agency received written documentation on Nov. 15 from the DBA, nearly two months after the incident. But Bell said she was verbally notified "a week or so" prior and visited the site on Nov. 26.

Farkas said the company will not be paid for demolishing the home. The Michigan Homeowner Assistance Nonprofit Housing Corp., which administers the Hardest Hit Fund program that funds Land Bank demolitions, said it was not notified of the incident.

"MHA was notified in March 2018 by DLB that it had abatement planned and demo in process," MHA spokesperson Katie Bach said via email. "To date, we have not received any invoices on any part of the demolition and we were not made aware of an improper demolition. No HHF funds have been disbursed for this address."

The company was slated to be paid $18,670 in federal funds.

In two separate interviews and via email, city officials characterized the incident as a "serious violation and breach of our protocol and contract," but countered that the incident didn't rise to the "level of necessitating a follow-up community health notification" and that the debris was removed the same day the demolition occurred.

The city does not have a policy in place to notify nearby residents when demolitions occur without proper abatement and declined to directly answer whether such notification should occur since the city has experienced similar incidents before.

"Hundreds of emergency demolitions occur in the city each year when asbestos abatement is not possible due to the unsafe condition of the structure," Farkas said. "In all of those cases, this wet-wet process is required and considered by MEDQ to be a sufficient health protection since it effectively contains the dust from the demolition. In other words, while not abated as it should have been and a significant violation of the process, this demolition was done under the same MDEQ-approved safety standards for wetting as all of our emergency demolitions."

Although abatement isn't required for emergency demolition orders, a series of procedures are still in place to diminish the risk of asbestos exposure, including air monitoring, which is required to be performed during the course of an entire demolition by a third party. Contractors are also required to have on-site trailers in case a worker is exposed to asbestos during the course of an emergency demolition.

Farkas noted that the requirements for emergency demolitions are dictated by Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration and are only in place to ensure worker safety.

But for Detroit resident Willard Cooper, that's not acceptable.

"I guess the contractors just do what they want to do," Cooper, 83, said. "It's not city folk or city contractors doing this work, everybody knows this. Suburban companies come in here and do that stuff and try to get away with it."

Cooper, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 40 years and raised her family there, is a block over from the site.

"How long is that stuff in the air?" Cooper said, pointing to a window in her living room. "The neighborhoods? They ain't worried about us. They not worried about the folks that live here. The city, when they have these contractors, they should make sure they follow the rules because no matter how tight that window is, dust is going to get in."

Until the 1970s, asbestos was widely used in buildings and homes for fireproofing, thermal insulation and more. With the exception of emergency demolitions, buildings where abatement isn't possible due to unsafe structural conditions, asbestos is required to be removed if it is dry and crumby, or likely to become pulverized. The EPA declared it a hazardous pollutant in 1971.

Asbestos can cause lung disease and cancer, but symptoms may not become apparent for decades. Asbestos fibers are smaller than a human hair and their aerodynamic shape helps transport them far beyond their original point of release.

This isn't the first reported issue involving asbestos in the city's demolition program.

In 2017, a Free Press investigation found that contractors cut corners, mishandled deadly asbestos at dozens of sites across the city. The state of Michigan subsequently pushed for fines, additional penalties and tightened its regulations.

Nick Schroeck, director of the University of Detroit Mercy's environmental law clinic, said it's disappointing to see another instance of a contractor not performing proper abatement.

"If they do the demolition without doing abatement, you risk the asbestos fibers being released into the air and so anyone within a reasonable distance of that demolition is potentially at risk for inhaling asbestos fibers," Schroeck said. "It is a big concern and it's something you would think that with all the attention ... and the reporting that the Free Press has done, the contractors would be more careful."

In a similar situation, in June 2016, the DEQ cited one company, Brown Environmental Construction, for tearing down homes before the asbestos could be removed. The agency said at the time that asbestos-containing material was "evident throughout the construction debris pile and on the surrounding property" and the debris was dry and "not contained," a requirement designed to keep fibers from becoming airborne.

That company was eventually permanently removed from the program and is no longer allowed to bid.

When asked if swifter or more immediate action should take place against Den-Man in light of penalties given to previous companies, city spokesman John Roach and Farkas said it wasn't an "apples to apples comparison" because of the nature of the violations.

"I think our actions to date that we took upon finding out about this speak for themselves," Farkas said. "...I don't know another city that has taken the action we have ... The process is still playing out."

Den-Man first publicly came under fire when it lost more than $3.3 million in work it was set to receive after text messages revealed it was responsible for several large piles of dirt and materials illegally dumped by a subcontractor on a woman's property in April.

The company initially denied any wrongdoing to the city but a Detroit Police Department investigation found that the company was aware.

The company again made headlines in September when one of its workers allegedly called two black Detroit Building Authority employees the N-word and physically threatened one of them at a job site.

The incident was condemned by members of the Detroit City Council, as well as city leadership, which said this type of behavior has "no place in our city or on any city work site." The company, also decried the incident, and fired the employee.

It also spurred an investigation by Detroit's Ombudsman Bruce Simpson, who is an independent, government official appointed by the City Council to respond to citizen complaints against city government departments and agencies.

Simpson initially sought for the inspector general to ban the employee in question from working in the city back in September but amended his request in October, according to an internal memo, to instead ban the company from doing work in the city.

But an Oct. 11 investigation report, written nearly a month after the Flanders incident by Inspector General Ellen Ha, denied Simpson's request to debar, or ban, the employee and the company. The response was sent to Detroit city council members and other city staff.

Ha said her office shared similar sentiments that the September incident was "reprehensible and completely unacceptable" but it could not proceed with the requested ban.

"Because Den-Man took immediate and prompt action against Mr. (Tim) Sherman by terminating him from Den-Man's employment for this incident, we are not able to debar Den-Man based on this incident alone," Ha wrote, adding that the investigation is ongoing.

Simpson confirmed to the Free Press he made the request, but declined to comment on the nature of his request due to the ongoing investigation.

"I take the health and safety our citizens that make up our neighborhoods and communities very seriously," Simpson said in a brief interview. "They should not have to worry about being allegedly exposed to asbestos."

Simpson also raised concerns about the number of suburban demolition companies that have been given the chance to "make millions in this city while the majority of Detroit-based minority companies struggle to get work."

"Any work performed in the City of Detroit should be performed in a way that is respectful and safe for the community," Simpson said. "If not, they should be held accountable. Companies that conduct themselves in this manner make it bad for those who do things the right way."

Kenneth Rosenman, a professor of medicine at Michigan State University who specializes in occupational and environmental disease, including asbestos, said repeated exposure is usually what puts people at increased risk of developing cancer -- not a single instance.

"The highest risk are to the workers who are repeatedly doing it," Rosenman said. "If you look at people who get sick from asbestos it's usually from years of exposure. But of course for the residents, you don't want this to happen at all."

But the reassurance that the exposure risk is relatively low, isn't enough to qualm the concern of nearby resident Gladys Parish.

"The concern is you've got all of these abandoned buildings and all of this asbestos is still in the houses and we're getting subjected to it," Parish said. "Maybe if they know somebody is watching, maybe someone will be held accountable but what good does that do for us after the fact?"

Kat Stafford is the Detroit government watchdog reporter for the Free Press, covering city issues and the community. Contact her: kstafford@freepress.com or 313-223-4759.

Reporter Jennifer Dixon contributed to this report.

To read previous coverage concerning demolition issues go to: https://www.freep.com/news/investigations/