Kyla Sentes, a public health sciences PhD student at the University of Alberta who has been researching problems with Calgary’s roadways, says many of the city’s roads contain asbestos and that roadwork on those streets poses a public health hazard to those who live and work in the vicinity.

City officials, however, maintain that there is no public health hazard. However, Sentes says road crews aren’t wearing the proper protective gear and she fears that they are inhaling asbestos fibers. Asbestos was used in asphalt in many Canada provinces until the mid 1980s.

“People should look like space men when they’re out there - there’s zero excuse for [not wearing protection],” she said, pointing to decades worth of research into the toxic substance. “I was kind of floored that some kind of assessment wasn’t made public to the people in Calgary that this was in their roadways.”

Sentes is also concerned that the city will use recycled asphalt when repaving the roads, creating the same hazards over again.

“It still tops every occupational disease mortality data every year in the country,” Sentes, a member of Ottawa-based Ban Asbestos Canada, says about mesothelioma, a serious asbestos-caused cancer. Sentes’ father died of mesothelioma eight years ago.

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