A local architect late last week unveiled a plan for asbestos removal from four of Bellefonte Area School District's six buildings over the next three to five years. Other area school districts have similar programs underway.

The cost could range up to $460,000 over several years, said consultant Steven Bottiger of Steven Bottiger AIA Consulting Architects, depending on which of the four projects is handled first.

The Bellefonte school board will decide in March or April whether to implement Bottiger's plan, which Superintendent Frederick Sample said would take three to five years. Removal and encapsulation, or painting over of asbestos surfaces, will begin this summer.

Bottiger said the plan, covering four of Bellefonte's six school buildings, will remove friable asbestos insulation on heating, piping and boilers which could come loose under normal maintenance.

Other asbestos in the building, which Bottiger described as "hard as a rock," will not need to be removed unless construction or repair projects that might break it loose are involved.

Sample said the program falls under the Asbestos Emergency Hazard Removal Act passed two years ago requiring districts to monitor potentially hazardous materials such as asbestos in public buildings.

"We don't have any hazardous situations at the present time," Sample said. "The law requires us to identify what might become a hazardous situation and remove it in time."

The district removed and painted over asbestos-containing materials in several areas five years ago following state legislation, Sample said. "The new law's much tighter. It made us go over the whole thing with a finer comb," he said.

Bottiger agreed that no immediate danger could result from the asbestos in the buildings. "The district's not catching up with an existing hazard, but trying to prevent a future hazard," he said. "If there were any immediate (health) hazards, they would have closed the buildings."

Bald Eagle and State College area school districts also are looking at asbestos treatment.

Bald Eagle Assistant Superintendent Dan Fisher said the district inspected its six school buildings for asbestos in summer 1988 and constantly looks at areas that may require removal.

"Most areas showed almost no presence of asbestos," Fisher said, adding that some asbestos had been removed or encapsulated previously.

However, continual checks are required because of changing situations, Fisher said. "A pipe could leak over something that's in excellent shape now and change non-friable asbestos to friable" and require removal later, he said. Fisher expects all asbestos to be removed eventually.

"As long as it's not a present hazard, there's no sense in putting it on the removal schedule," Fisher said.

State College Area School District Physical Plant Director Merrill Sweitzer said the district filed asbestos treatment plans last October and has a trained staff member who checks potential problem areas every six months and is currently instructing others in treatment methods.

The plan is implemented by district staffers because of the higher cost of outside consultants, Sweitzer said.

The district has no friable asbestos, Sweitzer said, but checks tiles and insulation that contain asbestos. He said the Environmental Protection Agency recommends containment rather than removal because of high disposal costs and the possibility of releasing asbestos into the atmosphere during the removal process.

Bottiger said people often fail to realize that asbestos is common in the everyday environment.

"Every school in Pennsylvania --every building in Pennsylvania -- has it if it was constructed between 1940 and 1975," when asbestos was a common building material, Bottinger said. Also, automakers still use asbestos for brake lining and that material escapes into the air, he said.