The people handling the remodeling of North Tonawanda Middle School worked to ensure parents that asbestos abatement will not put their children at risk during a Thursday night presentation.

Ray Bednarski, an executive associate for Kideney Architects, said the work starting May 18 is the culmination of more than a year of planning that will provide a complete overhaul of the school.

“There’s not many parts of the building that will not be touched,” Bednarski said.

But to install new electronic Smartboards, add connections for computers, change out lighting systems and replace lockers and machinery, asbestos inside floor tiles, window caulk and insulation could be disturbed. In its current state, the asbestos is perfectly safe, but when construction starts, it has to go because air-borne asbestos causes cancer and other chronic illnesses.

Chris Stohl, of Stohl Environmental, ran parents through the long process New York state requires for asbestos abatement. For starters, that involves turning any room where abatement is being done into a plastic bubble, with every entry point for air covered with two layers of thick plastic. Unlike radiation or chemicals that give off fumes, asbestos is easily containable when the right procedures are followed, Stohl said.

“It will not go through a solid object,” Stohl said. “It will not go through plastic or tape.”

To keep the asbestos from becoming airborne, contractors will wet the tiles or other asbestos-containing materials before they’re removed. And on the off-chance something gets into the air, fans equipped with HEPA-filter systems will trap it before pushing clean air out the room’s windows. The fans also create an air flow that keeps the rest of the building safe during the abatement, and an air lock installed at the entryway keeps asbestos from hitching a ride outside, Stohl said.

Air monitors set up outside the room provide constant testing to ensure nothing is escaping, and when the crew is done with a room a rigorous cleaning followed by air tests inside the room must prove completely safe before it can be reopened, Stohl said.

“No area, by law, is ever opened up without those steps happening,” Stohl said.

Work on the classrooms will start when school lets out, but the scope of the project necessitates starting abatement on the computer lab and music room prior to summer vacation, said John McCarthy of Campus Construction Management Group. But the seals will be in place and, just to be on the safe side, crews won’t be working when students are in the building.

“No abatement will be going on during the day,” McCarthy said. “No work will be going on during the day.”

Crews working overnight will have to complete air tests during and after their work is completed, and if anything isn’t right they have to clean and retest until it is.

“If that air sample comes back dirty, we’ll call school off, but we don’t expect that to happen,” McCarthy said.

The abatement and construction process will go through September and resume the following summer to complete the two-year plan, but McCarthy said student areas will be safe when the school opens its doors for the 2009-10 school year.

Once all is said and done, the school will have new paint, better lights, new lockers, improved technology, modern flooring, a parking lot more friendly to cars and buses and nine new classrooms for BOCES use.

Contact reporter Daniel Pyeat 693-1000, ext. 158.