What Merit Construction Actually Did

The Facts Merit Construction Company operates out of Atlanta, Georgia. From approximately November 8, 2024, through March 28, 2025, the company conducted renovation work at a commercial dental office located at 5243 Snapfinger Woods Drive, Suite 105, in Stonecrest, Georgia. The work included, at minimum, the removal of flooring materials from that office.

The Facts Federal law under 40 C.F.R. § 61.145(a) is unambiguous: every owner or operator of a renovation or demolition activity must conduct a thorough inspection for asbestos-containing materials before beginning any work that could break up, dislodge, or disturb asbestos material. This is not optional guidance. This is a legal requirement under the National Emission Standard for Asbestos, promulgated under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act.

The Misconduct Merit Construction did not conduct that inspection. The EPA conducted an on-site visit to the facility on March 12, 2025. In follow-up discussions and email correspondence after that inspection, Merit Construction’s own representative confirmed in writing that no asbestos inspection was performed prior to starting the renovation. The company did the work first and worried about it later, and only because the EPA showed up.

Who Is “Merit Construction” In This Story?

The company is identified in the EPA document as Merit Construction Company, a corporation doing business in the State of Georgia. The certificate of service names Mark Koehler as the company’s representative, reachable at 2400 Pleasantdale Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30340. The company is classified as the “owner or operator” of the renovation activity under federal definitions, meaning they held full legal responsibility for compliance with asbestos regulations at the Stonecrest dental office site.

The renovation ran for approximately 140 days. Asbestos-containing flooring materials, including vinyl floor tiles and their adhesive backing, were common in commercial buildings constructed before the 1980s. The EPA document does not confirm whether asbestos was actually present in the removed flooring, because the required pre-renovation inspection was never done. That is precisely the point: Merit Construction created an exposure risk that could never be properly assessed because they destroyed the materials without testing them first.

The Non-Financial Ledger

The costs that don’t show up in a settlement check.

The dental office at 5243 Snapfinger Woods Drive serves a community in Stonecrest, Georgia. Stonecrest is a majority-Black city incorporated in 2016, located in DeKalb County, southeast of Atlanta. The people who walked through the doors of that dental office between November 2024 and March 2025, patients sitting in waiting rooms, people keeping routine checkups, people bringing their kids in for cleanings, had no idea that the floor beneath their feet may have contained one of the most dangerous materials ever used in American construction. They were never told. They had no opportunity to consent or to choose differently. Merit Construction took that choice away from them the moment they picked up a floor scraper without first running an asbestos test.

Asbestos exposure does not announce itself. There is no burning sensation, no immediate symptom, no alarm. The fibers are microscopic and invisible. They enter the lungs and stay there. Mesothelioma, the cancer most directly linked to asbestos exposure, carries a median survival time of roughly 12 to 21 months after diagnosis, and it typically takes 20 to 50 years after exposure for symptoms to appear. The cruelty of asbestos-related illness is that by the time a person knows they were exposed, they may already be dying. Every dental patient, every hygienist, every front desk worker who breathed the air in that office during the renovation now carries an unanswered question they may not find the answer to for decades.

The workers who actually removed the flooring face the most acute risk. Renovation workers are the individuals most likely to disturb asbestos-containing materials directly, to breathe in the highest concentrations of fibers, and to carry those fibers home on their clothing to their families. Federal asbestos regulations exist specifically to protect these workers: the law requires inspection before demolition so that if asbestos is present, workers can use proper protective equipment, containment procedures, and certified removal protocols. Merit Construction denied its own crew those protections. The document does not record whether workers were warned, whether they wore respirators, or whether they were ever told what they may have been exposed to.

The settlement document records that Merit Construction “neither admits nor denies” the facts of the violation. The EPA accepted that framing. The company pays $5,425 ($5,425, roughly the cost of two months of groceries for an average American family of four) and walks away with a clean compliance record for this matter. The dental patients, the hygienists, the workers, and the community members who spent months in or around that building get nothing from this settlement. No monitoring. No medical fund. No notification. No formal acknowledgment that something went wrong. The penalty goes to the federal government. The risk stays with the people.

Legal Receipts: Read Their Own Words

The Facts These are direct, verbatim passages from the EPA’s official Consent Agreement and Final Order. Nothing has been added, altered, or paraphrased.

“Respondent confirmed that no asbestos inspection was conducted prior to beginning the renovation activity at the Facility.” — EPA Region 4 Consent Agreement, Findings of Facts, Paragraph 20

“Respondent neither admits nor denies the factual allegations set forth in Section IV (Findings of Facts) of this CAFO.” — Consent Agreement, Stipulations, Paragraph 24(b)

“Respondent’s full compliance with this CAFO shall only resolve Respondent’s liability for federal civil penalties for the violation and facts specifically alleged above.” — Consent Agreement, Effect of CAFO, Paragraph 34

“Asbestos is a ‘hazardous air pollutant’ as that term is defined in Section 112(a) of the CAA, 42 U.S.C. § 7412(a), and is the subject of regulations codified at 40 C.F.R. Part 61, Subpart M, ‘National Emission Standard for Asbestos.'” — Consent Agreement, Governing Law, Paragraph 8

“Full payment of the civil penalty, as provided in Section VII (Terms of Payment), shall satisfy the requirements of this CAFO; but, shall not in any case affect the right of EPA or the United States to pursue appropriate injunctive or other equitable relief or criminal sanctions for any violations of law.” — Consent Agreement, Effect of CAFO, Paragraph 35

Societal Impact Mapping

Public Health: A Community Left in the Dark

The Misconduct Asbestos is classified as a “hazardous air pollutant” under the federal Clean Air Act, confirmed explicitly in the EPA’s own enforcement document. The National Emission Standard for Asbestos exists entirely because asbestos fibers, once airborne, cause fatal diseases including mesothelioma, asbestosis, and lung cancer. The entire regulatory framework around renovation and demolition is designed to stop these fibers from becoming airborne in the first place, before the damage is done.

Merit Construction’s failure to conduct a pre-renovation inspection means there is no record of whether asbestos was present in the flooring that was removed. There is no air quality monitoring data from the renovation period. There is no documentation of protective measures for workers or building occupants. The dental office operated in a commercial building, meaning it shared an HVAC system, common areas, and air circulation with other tenants and visitors in Suite 105 and potentially beyond. The asbestos risk, if it existed, did not stop at the dental office door.

The settlement contains no requirement for retroactive air quality testing, no mandate for medical monitoring of affected workers or building occupants, and no community notification requirement. The EPA’s enforcement action ends with a check for $5,425 ($5,425, less than the average American pays in federal income taxes in a single year) and a signed form. The public health exposure, real or potential, remains unquantified and unaddressed by this agreement.

Environmental Degradation: The Disposal Question That Was Never Asked

The Misconduct Asbestos-containing materials require special handling during disposal. They must be kept wet to prevent fiber release, placed in sealed, leak-proof containers, labeled with specific asbestos warnings, and transported to landfills permitted to accept hazardous asbestos waste. These disposal requirements exist under the same 40 C.F.R. Part 61, Subpart M regulations that Merit Construction violated by skipping the inspection.

Because no asbestos inspection was conducted before the renovation began, there is no documentation indicating that the removed flooring materials were treated as asbestos-containing waste during disposal. The EPA’s enforcement document records only the pre-inspection violation; it does not address what happened to the flooring debris after it was removed. If those materials contained regulated asbestos-containing material and were disposed of without proper precautions, the contamination risk extends beyond the dental office and into whatever waste stream received that debris.

Economic Inequality: Who Actually Pays for This?

The Misconduct The $5,425 ($5,425, less than the median American worker earns in a single month of full-time labor) penalty represents the full financial consequence of Merit Construction’s violation. The company is a commercial contractor that completed a multi-month renovation project on a commercial facility. The financial asymmetry between the cost of compliance, which was simply hiring a licensed asbestos inspector before starting work, and the cost of getting caught is enormous. Asbestos inspections for a commercial space typically run a few hundred dollars. The penalty for skipping that inspection was $5,425. The math incentivizes the gamble.

Stonecrest, Georgia is not a wealthy suburb. The city was created in part to give its predominantly Black community local control over economic development and public safety. When federal environmental enforcement produces a $5,425 fine for potentially exposing that community to a known carcinogen, and delivers no community benefit from that fine, the enforcement system functions as a paperwork ritual rather than a genuine deterrent or a mechanism for justice. The money goes to the U.S. Treasury. The community gets the risk and the liability of not knowing what they breathed.

The structure of this settlement also allows Merit Construction to count this CAFO as its compliance history in future enforcement actions, while simultaneously never admitting it did anything wrong. For future clients and regulators reviewing the company’s record, the formal language reads as a resolved matter. The underlying behavior, skipping required safety steps and hoping no one checks, carries no formal admission, no public shame, and no accountability beyond a fee that amounts to less than most construction contracts pay for a week of labor.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now?

The Resistance The settlement is final. Merit Construction pays the fine and moves on. But enforcement doesn’t have to be the end of accountability.

Responsible Corporate Officers Named in This Document

• Mark Koehler, Representative, Merit Construction Company; 2400 Pleasantdale Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30340; markk@merit-construction.com

Regulatory Bodies With Jurisdiction to Watch

• EPA Region 4: Covers Georgia. The case officer is Pamela Storm, Air Enforcement Branch (storm.pamela@epa.gov). Follow up on whether any additional compliance monitoring is planned for this site.
• Georgia Environmental Protection Division (Georgia EPD): The state agency with co-enforcement authority over asbestos regulations in Georgia. They can be contacted separately from the EPA.
• OSHA: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has separate jurisdiction over worker protection during asbestos renovation. The EPA’s enforcement action does not address worker safety violations, which fall under OSHA’s authority.
• DeKalb County Board of Health: The local public health authority for Stonecrest, Georgia. Community members who were present at or near the facility during the renovation period can contact the county health department to ask about asbestos exposure resources.

What You Can Actually Do

If you were a patient, worker, or visitor at 5243 Snapfinger Woods Drive, Suite 105, Stonecrest, Georgia between November 2024 and March 2025, document your visits. Talk to a doctor about your exposure history and ask them to note it in your medical record. You do not need to prove harm now; you need a paper trail for the future. Connect with environmental health and justice organizations in metro Atlanta, including Georgia WAND (Women’s Action for New Directions) and the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, which have experience navigating environmental exposure advocacy in Georgia’s Black communities. Collective records and community organizing are the tools that transform a $5,425 fine into real accountability.