SPOKANE — Three companies renovating the Otis Hotel in downtown Spokane have been cited for violating state health and safety rules, receiving fines totaling nearly $140,000, the first round of financial penalties stemming from the companies’ mishandling of cancer-causing asbestos material in the historic hotel.
One of the companies cited by the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries is owned by Curtis Rystadt, a former mortgage broker who purchased the building for $1.4 million in June 2017. Rystadt’s company, Portland-based Hos and Boz LLC, was fined $24,500 for eight “serious” and three “general” violations of worker safety rules. The company also was fined $45,000 for 16 “serious” violations of state rules regulating hazardous materials.
Santiago’s Handyman Services, also of Oregon, received the same fines as Rystadt’s company, totaling $69,500. A third company, 4 Aces Restoration, based in Kent, received a $200 fine for not informing the state of when it would be handling asbestos.
Rystadt and Abundio Santiago have appealed the fines, beginning a potentially lengthy process that could lead to the state’s Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals and Spokane County Superior Court.
The Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency is preparing its own notice of violations, which also will come with monetary fines. The agency would not discuss the violations since they have not yet been issued.
The citations and fines follow inspections in March, when air quality inspectors found signs of improper handling and disposal of asbestos-laden material from the 107-year-old downtown building. The state labor agency issued an “order of immediate restraint” on March 9, and construction was delayed for three months while local and state inspectors investigated the handling and removal not just of asbestos, but also lead, which is in the aged building’s paint.
Rystadt denies any wrongdoing and says he has documentation to prove his innocence. Instead, he blames “incompetency” and “bureaucracy” for failing to recognize he’s done nothing wrong.
“First of all, I’m not an employer. I don’t employ anybody,” Rystadt said, pointing to two specific violations that use the word “employee.”
“They were not my employees,” he said. “Even though I’m not the employer and I’m not responsible for that stuff, I do not want people working in unsafe conditions.”
Beyond that, Rytstadt said he hired 4 Aces Restoration to properly dispose of the asbestos material and left it to them to follow the rules. The company, which received a substantially smaller fine than Rystadt, did not return calls seeking comment. Rystadt said he spent more than $50,000 disposing of the asbestos and had 4 Aces Restoration in the building “three or four times” to dispose of floor tiles, popcorn ceiling and insulated pipes embedded in the walls. Each time, he said, workers wore masks and used a negative-pressure enclosure.
Rystadt also denied that the workers did not properly handle lead-based paint in the building. The real issue, he said, was “incompetent” inspectors. He called one state Department of Ecology inspector a “bonehead.”
“It’s incompetency,” he said. “It is a bureaucracy that’s sad to deal with. I can see why people get frustrated with government.”
Lisa Woodard, spokeswoman with the local air agency, said 105 dumpsters were removed from the Otis by the time inspectors came to the site. At that point, debris in the building tested positive for asbestos. Similar debris was in two dumpsters outside the building.
Asked if people who live or work near the Otis should be concerned about exposure, Woodard said exposure is “predominantly” dangerous “if somebody is digging through and working in the piles” and suggested the “ambient” exposure did not jeopardize the health of people passing by.
“There have been a lot of problems with this project from the get-go,” Woodard said.
