Nederland residents want to pick up the pieces and move on from a fire that ripped through a town shopping center in October, but some struggle to move on as debris from the blaze remains out in the open three months later.
That’s because the Colorado Department of Public Health needs to be sure that the site is free of harmful substances, specifically asbestos, once debris from the Caribou Village Shopping Center is disturbed. Tebo Properties, the owner of the land the center sat on for 40 years, has conducted asbestos testing that came back negative. But CDPHE requires additional testing as asbestos-containing materials may have been used in portions of the building.
Bill Rigler, a Tebo Properties spokesperson, said that CDPHE requires that multiple portions of the property can be tested, with property divided into a grid layout and soil from each individual grid tested…