225 ILCS 207/15

(225 ILCS 207/15)

Sec. 15. Definitions. As used in this Act:

"Asbestos abatement contractor" means any entity that provides removal, enclosure, encapsulation, or disposal of asbestos containing materials.

"Asbestos containing building materials" or "ACBM" means surfacing asbestos containing materials or ACM, thermal system insulation ACM, or miscellaneous ACM that is found in or on interior structural members or other parts of a building.

"Asbestos" means the asbestiform varieties of chrysotile, amosite, crocidolite, tremolite, anthrophyllite, and actinolite.

"Asbestos inspector" means an individual who performs inspections of commercial and public buildings for the presence of asbestos containing materials.

"Asbestos materials" means any material or product that contains more than 1% asbestos.

"Asbestos consultant" means a person offering expert or professional advice as an asbestos professional or designated person.

"Asbestos professional" means an individual who is licensed by the Department to perform the duties of an inspector, management planner, project designer, project supervisor, project manager, or air sampling professional, as applicable, except project supervisors under the direct employ of a licensed asbestos abatement contractor.

"Asbestos supervisor" means an asbestos abatement contractor, foreman, or person designated as the asbestos abatement contractor's representative who is responsible for the onsite supervision of the removal, encapsulation, or enclosure of friable or nonfriable asbestos-containing materials in a commercial or public building.

"Asbestos worker" means an individual who cleans, removes, encapsulates, encloses, hauls, or disposes of friable asbestos material.

"Building/facility owner" is the legal entity, including a lessee, that exercises control over management and record keeping functions relating to a building or facility in which activities covered by this standard take place.

"Commercial or public building" means the interior space of any building, except that the term does not include any residential apartment building of fewer than 10 units or detached single family homes. The term includes, but is not limited to: industrial and office buildings, residential apartment buildings and condominiums of 10 or more dwelling units, government-owned buildings, colleges, museums, airports, hospitals, churches, schools, preschools, stores, warehouses, and factories. Interior space includes exterior hallways connecting buildings, porticos, and mechanical systems used to condition interior space.

"Department" means the Department of Public Health.

"Designated person" means a person designated by the local education agency, as defined by the Asbestos Abatement Act, to ensure that the management plan has been properly implemented.

"Director" means the Director of Public Health.

"Encapsulation" means the treatment of ACBM with a material that surrounds or embeds asbestos fibers in an adhesive matrix that prevents the release of fibers as the encapsulant creates a membrane over the surfaces (bridging encapsulant) or penetrates the material and binds its components together (penetrating encapsulant).

"Enclosure" means the construction of airtight walls and ceilings between the asbestos containing material and the building environment, or around surfaces coated with asbestos containing materials, or any other appropriate scientific procedure as determined by the Department that prevents the release of asbestos.

"Friable", when referring to material in a commercial or public building, means that the material, when dry, may be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure and includes previously nonfriable materials after such previously nonfriable material becomes damaged to the extent that, when dry, it may be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure.

"Inspection" means an activity undertaken in a public or commercial building to determine the presence or location, or to assess the condition of, friable or nonfriable asbestos containing building material (ACBM) or suspected ACBM, whether by visual or physical examination, or by collecting samples of such material.

"Nonfriable" means material in a commercial or public building which, when dry, may not be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure.

"Person" means any individual, group of individuals, association, trust, partnership, corporation, person doing business under an assumed name, or any other entity.

"Project designer" means an individual who designs response actions for commercial or public buildings.

"Response action" means a method, including removal, encapsulation, enclosure, repair, operations and maintenance, that protects human health and the environment from friable ACBM.

"Response action contractor" means any entity that engages in response action services.

"Response action services" means the service of designing and conducting removal, encapsulation, enclosure, repair, or operations and maintenance of friable asbestos containing building materials, inspection of public or commercial buildings, and inspection of asbestos containing materials. The term does not include the design or conducting of response actions that involve removal or possible disturbance of an amount of asbestos containing building material comprising less than 3 square feet or less than 3 lineal feet of other friable asbestos containing building material.

(Source: P.A. 93-894, eff. 8-10-04.)