A Slow Burn Over Library Closure : Asbestos: A removal project is taking longer than expected, forcing Valley College students to use other facilities.

The 20,000 students at Valley College have not been able to use the campus library since classes began in September because an asbestos removal project has taken weeks longer than planned.

Originally scheduled to reopen last month, the library has remained closed because workers found more asbestos than anticipated and have had difficulty reaching asbestos in crawl spaces in the ceiling. As a result, students have had to go to other college and city libraries to study and do research.

“Everybody is really angry,” said Alaine Jelsvik, president of the school’s Associated Student Union. Jelsvik said students may organize a study-in protest in the Administration Building to show their displeasure at being without a library during midterm exams, which are scheduled for next week and the week after.

“It goes without saying that it’s an impossible situation,” librarian Cynthia Siskin said. Siskin and 10 other library staff members have been working out of cramped quarters near the cafeteria while the 120,000-book collection remains wrapped in plastic.

The delay has been caused in part by bureaucratic tangles within the Los Angeles Community College District and environmental regulations that restrict the pace at which work can proceed.

Asbestos is a cancer-causing fibrous mineral once widely used for insulation.

Administrators don’t expect the library to reopen until mid-November because crews are still making repairs to the 18,000-square-foot building. P.W. Stephens Contractors Inc. was hired for $300,000 to remove asbestos at the campus. Company officials told the vice president of administration, Mary Ann Breckell, that their crews would be out of the building by late next week. It will take an additional week or so for librarians to prepare the library for student use, Siskin said.

Lonnie Briggs, branch manager of P.W. Stephens, said work is proceeding “as fast as is safe.” Briggs said asbestos in the building was removed by late September and crews now are replacing the ceiling and electrical parts that were removed during the process.

Briggs said that some of the delay occurred because subcontractors such as electricians could not enter the building to prepare a work plan until the area received clearance from an independent inspector. And David Ogne, building and grounds administrator at the college, said work was further complicated because the building has been remodeled three times, cutting off access to some areas.

Even so, the project got off to a bad start. Cleanup was originally scheduled to begin in June, but the district had problems issuing the contracts needed for work to commence. And when the contracts were issued and work began in August, college employees had not removed furniture in the library, which was part of the deal, district chancellor Donald Phelps said.

Briggs said workers found more asbestos than expected, much of it in hard to reach places. “You don’t know what you’ve got until you get up there,” he said. Once the problems were found, Briggs said, his company and the college agreed to waive the September deadline.

“It was a Murphy’s Law situation: If there were things that could go wrong, they did,” Phelps said.

As workers put finishing touches on the library, students are using city libraries and libraries at Pierce and Mission colleges and Cal State Northridge. Many complained Thursday that not having a library on campus is a major inconvenience.

“Something needs to be done because this is ridiculous,” said Erica Hauck, a commissioner on the executive council of the school’s Associated Student Union.