The deferred maintenance crisis plaguing institutional and commercial facilities does not just involve a host of repairs that technicians need to perform. The crisis also entails the oversight of deteriorating facilities that, in many cases, contain hazardous materials that require monitoring and remediation. For organizations overseeing a stock of aging facilities, these potential threats are often costly and complex. The federal government’s landlord recently received a reminder of that responsibility.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report examining an estimated $2 billion in environmental liabilities on federal properties, such as asbestos and lead-based paint, that the General Service Administration (GSA) is legally responsible for addressing. The report found that GSA is not inspecting buildings for asbestos as frequently as required by its policy, including not conducting inspections for hundreds of buildings in more than a decade. The GSA implement recommends implementing a plan to address this lack of oversight.
GSA annually reports its environmental contaminants and liabilities across three categories: asbestos, non-asbestos (e.g., lead paint), and hazardous releases (e.g., petroleum). GSA's estimated environmental liabilities were largely stable between fiscal years 2018 and 2022, ranging from $1.8 to $2 billion.
But about two-thirds of buildings — 638 of 955 — were out of compliance with this inspection policy, according to GSA data. Buildings out of compliance include hundreds in which GSA has not conducted an inspection in more than a decade or does not know when the most recent inspection occurred.
The GOA report recommends that the GSA administrator should either implement a plan to ensure that asbestos inspections are conducted in accordance with GSA's current asbestos management policy or revise the policy to incorporate a risk-based approach.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.
