What a Fine Cannot Measure: The People Inside Those 49 Buildings

Asbestos does not kill you today. That is part of what makes this story so easy for corporations to absorb. The fibers are invisible. The cancers they cause, mesothelioma and asbestosis chief among them, take anywhere from ten to fifty years to develop. By the time a person is diagnosed, the company that exposed them has long since paid its fine, moved on to the next project, and issued a press release about community investment.

Think about what actually happened inside those six confirmed buildings on the North Side of Pittsburgh. Workers showed up to a job site. They were handed tools and told to renovate. Nobody told them the walls or floors they were tearing into might contain asbestos. There were no warning signs posted. There was no protective gear protocol. There was no sealed-off work area. There was no negative air pressure system pulling contaminated air away from human lungs. Asbestos dust, the carcinogenic kind, the kind that lodges permanently in lung tissue, was free to go wherever construction dust goes: into the air, into clothing, into hair, into the lungs of every person in that building and potentially the street outside.

The law requires warning signs that read, word for word: “DANGER – ASBESTOS – CANCER AND LUNG DISEASE HAZARD – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” Those signs were never posted. The people who walked past those construction sites, the neighbors, the mail carriers, the kids cutting through, had no idea. The workers tearing out materials had no idea. This is not an accident. This is a company that had already been caught doing the exact same thing in 2016 at the South Side Brewhouse project and paid a penalty for it. Then they did it again, at 49 properties, simultaneously.

The insult embedded in the legal record is precise. The enforcement order notes that even at the 43 properties where asbestos was not confirmed in post-renovation testing, the absence of a detectable finding is not evidence that asbestos was not present or disturbed during the work. The buildings were already in mid-renovation by the time inspectors arrived. Whatever was there may have already been inhaled.

There is no settlement for those workers in this document. There is no compensation fund for neighbors who breathed construction air from those sites. There is a fine paid to a county government. The people whose lungs absorbed whatever those walls contained will not know for years, perhaps decades, whether that exposure mattered. They will carry that uncertainty with them while Mistick Construction continues operating.

“The absence of asbestos at the time of the inspection was not evidence that asbestos was neither present nor disturbed during the renovation work.” — ACHD Enforcement Order, December 19, 2022

The legal system gave this company thirty days to appeal. The people exposed in those buildings were given nothing except a world where a company can be caught twice, pay a reduced fine both times, and still hold a contractor’s license.

Straight From the Document: What the Enforcement Order Actually Says

These are direct quotes from the Allegheny County Health Department Enforcement Order dated December 19, 2022. No paraphrasing. No interpretation beyond what the text plainly admits.

“ACHD determined that the 49 properties constituted ‘Phase Two’ of the renovation project and that those structures had been renovated without an asbestos survey having been conducted prior to the renovations.” — ACHD Enforcement Order, Paragraph 6

• This confirms the survey skip was systemic, covering an entire project phase, not an isolated oversight on a single building.
• The phrase “Phase Two” implies Phase One also existed. The document references a 2016 violation at the South Side Brewhouse project as a prior related incident.
• Federal law (40 CFR §61.145) requires asbestos inspection before renovation begins, every time, with no exceptions for scale or timeline.

“Prior to the issuance of the Administrative Field Orders, ACHD conducted an initial civil penalty assessment attributable to Respondents’ violations of Article XXI and the federal NESHAPs concerning renovation projects subject to asbestos abatement regulations. At the time of the initial assessment, ACHD concluded that Respondents would be subject to a civil penalty in the amount of $4,212,000.00.” — ACHD Enforcement Order, Paragraph 9

• The $4,212,000 figure is the government’s own calculation of what the violations were worth under the law before any negotiations took place.
• The final enforced penalty landed at $754,600, meaning $3,457,400 in calculated liability was effectively forgiven through the consent order process.
• The order cites the company’s “full cooperation and assistance” as a relevant factor. Cooperation, under this framework, is worth $3.4 million in penalty reduction.

“Violations that gave rise to the Stop Work Order constituted the second violation of Article XXI attributable to Respondents’ renovation activity. Specifically, Mistick and the Department entered into the May 6, 2016 Consent Order and Agreement, whereby Respondents were required to obtain an asbestos abatement permit to remediate the unlawful abatement activity with respect to their Brewhouse project in the South Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh.” — ACHD Enforcement Order, Paragraph 15

• This is the document confirming Mistick was a repeat offender. The 2016 South Side violation is cited by the same enforcement agency as the prior instance.
• The Brewhouse project involved the same category of violation: unlawful asbestos abatement without a permit.
• Despite having been through enforcement proceedings once already, the company did not conduct mandatory pre-renovation asbestos surveys on any of the 49 North Side properties.

“Respondents failed to post clearly identifiable signage anywhere on the worksite in a manner permitting a person to read the sign and take the necessary protective measures to avoid potential exposure prior to the removal of the asbestos containing material. Moreover, Respondents failed to maintain negative air pressure in the work area in six of the subject structures to prevent the contamination of asbestos fibers into the air.” — ACHD Enforcement Order, Paragraphs 34–35

• No warning signs means anyone near those buildings, including non-workers, had no ability to protect themselves or make an informed choice to leave.
• Negative air pressure systems are the primary engineering control that keeps asbestos fibers contained within a work zone. Their absence means fibers could migrate freely through the structure and potentially outside it.
• Both failures apply specifically to the six confirmed-ACM buildings, where verified carcinogenic material was being disturbed without any containment.

“ACHD inspectors observed a visible residue of ACM on surfaces and floors left behind from abatement activity.” — ACHD Enforcement Order, Paragraph 53

• Visible ACM residue means the material was not wetted, not properly removed, and not wet-cleaned as required by law. This is physical evidence of the contamination left behind.
• Federal and county regulations require wet cleaning of all surfaces after ACM removal precisely because dry residue becomes airborne under routine foot traffic or airflow.
• Inspectors had to document this themselves. It was not self-reported.

“Respondents failed to place asbestos containing material into leaktight containers for transportation to and disposal at approved landfills. Respondents failed to label leaktight containers in accordance with the requirements of 40 CFR §61.150(a)(1)(iv) and (v). None of the bags removed were securely sealed to prevent accidental opening and leakage. None of the ACM was taken to an authorized landfill.” — ACHD Enforcement Order, Paragraphs 60–63, and 52

• “None of the ACM was taken to an authorized landfill” means a federally controlled carcinogen was disposed of improperly at an unknown location, creating potential exposure hazards beyond the job site itself.
• Unlabeled, unsealed containers are a secondary contamination risk for anyone handling those materials downstream, including waste haulers and landfill workers who had no knowledge of what they were touching.
• This failure runs through the entire chain: no survey, no permit, no containment, no proper removal, no proper disposal. Every single step was skipped.

Who Pays When a Contractor Skips the Rules

Public Health

Every violation documented in this order corresponds to a specific pathway through which asbestos fibers could enter a human body. Each item below is a failure confirmed by inspectors, not an allegation.

• No pre-renovation asbestos survey was conducted on any of the 49 properties before demolition work began. Workers and anyone near those buildings were exposed to materials that had not been screened for carcinogens.
• Asbestos-containing material was confirmed in six structures. Those buildings were renovated without warning signs, meaning residents, passersby, and the general public on North Side streets had no ability to assess their exposure risk.
• Negative air pressure systems were absent in all six confirmed-ACM buildings. These systems are the primary engineering control preventing fibers from spreading outside the immediate work zone. Without them, fibers migrate freely through HVAC systems, open windows, and foot traffic.
• Work areas were not sealed with the required six-mil plastic sheeting on openings, floors, or walls. Asbestos dust generated during demolition had direct paths into adjacent rooms, hallways, and the street-facing exterior of each building.
• Decontamination enclosure systems were never installed. Workers entered and exited contaminated work areas without decontamination, carrying fibers on their clothing, skin, and equipment into vehicles, homes, and other job sites.
• ACM was not wetted before or during removal. Dry demolition of asbestos-containing material is the highest-risk removal method because it maximizes the generation of airborne respirable fibers.
• ACHD inspectors visually confirmed residue of asbestos-containing material left on floors and surfaces after work had already concluded. That residue was present in buildings before final clearance inspections were conducted.
• Asbestos waste was never delivered to an authorized landfill. The disposal location of confirmed carcinogenic waste from these six structures is not documented in the enforcement order, meaning secondary exposure routes remain unknown.
• Mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung disease carry latency periods of ten to fifty years. The workers and community members exposed at these sites will not have a definitive picture of harm for decades, and by then, no legal remedy in this enforcement action will apply to them.

“No person shall remove containment barriers, fail to continue to maintain negative air pressure at a project work area, or reopen the work area to the public… until such time as the Department has accepted the results of a final clearance inspection.” That inspection never happened before people were back inside.

Economic Inequality

The 49 properties are located in the North Side of Pittsburgh, a historically working-class neighborhood. The structure of this violation follows a pattern that consistently concentrates environmental and health risk in lower-income communities of color.

• Affordable housing renovation projects, the type this multi-phase project represents, are typically located in lower-income neighborhoods where residents have less political capital, fewer legal resources, and limited capacity to monitor contractor compliance.
• The investigation was triggered by a citizen complaint on May 16, 2019. Regulatory enforcement did not identify the violation through proactive oversight. Residents had to report it themselves before the system acted.
• Workers on residential renovation projects in this category are frequently lower-wage laborers, often unaware of their right to a safe worksite under OSHA standards and federal asbestos regulations. No worker notification protocol was in place at any of the 49 structures.
• The penalty reduction from $4,212,000 to $754,600 was attributed in part to the company’s “cooperation and assistance.” Cooperation is a resource available to well-resourced corporate defendants. The residents and workers who absorbed the health risk had no comparable negotiating position.
• The company’s repeat-offense status, confirmed by the 2016 South Side Brewhouse consent order, did not result in a penalty at the ceiling of the law’s authorization. The maximum authorized penalty is $25,000 per violation per day. The penalties actually assessed came nowhere near that ceiling even for a documented repeat offender.
• Residents who may have been contaminated have no compensation mechanism established by this order. The penalty flows to the county government. The people closest to the harm receive no direct financial remedy.

What the Fine Actually Cost Them

Divide the final penalty by the ten documented violation categories applied to the six confirmed-ACM buildings and the per-violation figure averages roughly $50,400. The law authorizes $25,000 per day, per violation. That means the penalty assessed here represents barely two days of the maximum authorized daily fine for each category. For a repeat offender operating a multi-phase renovation business across dozens of properties, this is a cost of doing business, not a deterrent.

The Watchlist, the Leverage, and What Residents Can Actually Do

The enforcement order identifies the following entities as jointly and severally liable for all violations. If you live on Pittsburgh’s North Side, work in construction, or are organizing around housing justice in Allegheny County, these are the names and agencies that matter.

Respondents Named in the Enforcement Order

• The NorthSide Properties Residences II., LLC
• Mistick Construction Company
• Northside Properties Residence II, LLC
• Northside Associates, LP
• Tom Mistick and Sons, Inc.

All five entities are held jointly and severally liable. That means each one is individually responsible for the full $754,600 penalty, and each can be pursued independently for future violations.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies With Jurisdiction

• Allegheny County Health Department, Air Quality Program: The issuing authority. File future complaints about asbestos violations at 542 Fourth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. This is the body that issued the Stop Work Orders and the final enforcement order. They respond to citizen complaints.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 3: Federal jurisdiction over NESHAP asbestos violations (40 CFR Part 61, Subpart M) runs through EPA Region 3, which covers Pennsylvania. The EPA can pursue independent federal enforcement action. File complaints at epa.gov/enforcement/report-environmental-violation.
• U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Pittsburgh Area Office: Worker exposure to asbestos during renovation falls under OSHA’s asbestos standard for construction (29 CFR 1926.1101). If workers were on site without hazard notification, respiratory protection, or decontamination facilities, OSHA has independent jurisdiction. File at osha.gov/workers/file-complaint.
• Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP): State-level oversight of air quality and hazardous waste disposal. The improper disposal of ACM at unauthorized landfills documented in this case falls within DEP’s enforcement authority.
• Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office: Repeat environmental violations by corporate actors can trigger state criminal enforcement, not just civil penalties. The 2016 and 2019 pattern documented here may meet the threshold for referral.

Mutual Aid, Organizing, and Grassroots Resistance

• If you lived near or worked in any of the 49 properties at 1300 Brighton Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15233 during or after the renovation period, document your dates of exposure and consult a physician. Asbestos-related diseases have long latency periods. Early documentation creates a medical and legal record now.
• Connect with Pittsburgh-area environmental justice organizations operating in the North Side. Community groups with housing justice or environmental health mandates can help residents navigate ACHD complaint processes and aggregate exposure histories.
• Construction workers in Allegheny County have the right to request OSHA inspections of any worksite they believe is unsafe without retaliation. If you are currently working for Mistick Construction or any affiliated entity, you can file a confidential OSHA complaint.
• Request records. The ACHD Enforcement Order, the 2016 Consent Order for the South Side Brewhouse project, and all associated inspection reports are public records under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law. File a request with ACHD for all inspection documentation related to the 49 North Side properties and the 2016 South Side violation.
• Attend public meetings of the Allegheny County Board of Health. The Board oversees ACHD. Showing up with documentation and demanding answers about penalty reduction practices for repeat offenders is one of the few direct pressure mechanisms available to the public.
• Share this enforcement order with your neighbors on Pittsburgh’s North Side. The order is a public document. People who live near these properties have a right to know that confirmed asbestos was disturbed without safety protocols in their neighborhood, and to decide for themselves whether they want medical monitoring.