The Naples Daily News reports that the FBI has been called in to investigate a citizens’ complaint into asbestos removal procedures on Marco Island, FL.

“The Collier County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the asbestos removal issue on Marco Island,” Sgt. David White of the sheriff’s Economic Crimes Unit wrote in an April 13 letter to Marco City Manager Bill Moss.

The complaint which prompted the investigation was a March 9th letter addressed to various state and federal agencies from a group of 50 Marco residents. Accompanying the letter was a packet of documentation, alleging that “city officials accused Marco citizens of planting asbestos and that a city contractor crushed asbestos on a city-owned vacant lot.”

“It’s about time,” said Vincent Leone, one of more than 4 dozen residents who signed the complaint. “I hope they complete the investigation and they find out what the source of the asbestos is because I don’t think what the city claims is right.”

The city manager, however, maintains that the letter is “politically motivated and patently false,” but Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy thought it prudent to forward the citizens’ complaint to the FBI for review. He did so on April 2nd.

The origins of this asbestos snafu involve representatives of a local political action committee known as Citizens Advocating Responsible Environmental Solutions (CARES). According to the newspaper account, the group found asbestos on city-owned lots known as Site A and Site C last March, prompting a six-day cleanup of Site C and a federal lawsuit against the city settled in October. Site A is still not cleared but is awaiting final U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approval on a plan to be submitted by city road contractor Quality Enterprises, which was also a party in the civil suit, explains the article.

In October 2006, more asbestos was discovered on Site C, which prompted a criminal investigation led by the Marco Island Police Department. That investigation is still ongoing and the recent complaint was lodged because of the lack of a conclusion.

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