This, my friends, is an amazing picture. Granted, it doesn't look very interesting, but this is what makes my job so exciting. We're excavating the site of a former industrial-sized boiler and we happened across these old rusty pipes that were wrapped in an equally grimey cloth-like material (center, pipe is at right). We took a sample of the cloth and, surprise, it had a chrysotile (asbestos) content of 50%!!! For those of you not in the industry, materials (roofing, vinyl tile, pipe insulation) have to be remediated in a specific way if they contain greater than 0.5% asbestos. Fifty percent is a lot of asbestos. None of the project managers in my office had seen a sample that contained so much asbestos. Yeah, this must be one of those things that you only get excited about if its in your field. It made my day though. :)
