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Cleanup of the debris at El Portal Hotel in downtown Raton was halted last Thursday after local officials notified state environmental regulators that some debris from last November’s destructive fire contained asbestos levels requiring special disposal, The Raton Range reported.
A week earlier, a contractor hired by El Portal owner Andy Holman of Pueblo, Colo., to remove the debris had begun hauling the waste to Raton’s soon-to-be-closed landfill, and city officials initially believed there were only minimal amounts of asbestos in the debris, The Range said.
But last week Raton’s code enforcement officer David McCarty learned that results of tests done in January did show certain materials in the rubble of El Portal contained “regulated asbestos waste,” more than 1 percent asbestos and in less-than-stable condition, the paper reported.
Interim City Manager Butch McGowen told The Range on Monday that the cleanup was “on hold.”
McGowen and Raton Public Works Director Pat Vigil would be discussing the situation today with the state’s Solid Waste Bureau Chief Auralie Ashley-Marks, according to bureau enforcement manager Chuck Akeley.
Akeley told The Range he didn’t know what would be done with waste already dumped into the landfill, which is not licensed for asbestos, but said the city could be subject to some sort of enforcement action.
“We’ve been working very closely with Raton,” Akeley told the paper. “We want to see this debris disposed of properly … and that’s the goal.”
6:27am 11/13/12 — Historic Raton Hotel Burns to Ground
By ABQnews Staff
A massive fire engulfed the historic El Portal Hotel in downtown Raton Friday night, reducing to rubble what was left of the block-long structure after a similar fire damaged much of the hotel/apartment building three years and nine months ago, The Raton Range reported.
The 2009 fire forced the closure of the hotel and apartments, leaving only a small portion of retail space functioning, with the bulk of the building vacant since that fire, The Range said.
A smaller fire damaged an apartment in the building three weeks ago, and investigators found a sleeping bag and some food items inside, and Raton Fire Chief Orlando Sandoval said he believed that the earlier fire and Friday’s blaze were “not accidental,” the paper reported.
“It’s going to be pretty difficult to determine” the cause of Friday’s fire because of the extensive damage, but Sandoval said it was “pretty obvious that it’s a suspicious fire,” The Range said.
