Dunedin will be grappling with the legacy of asbestos for a century to come.
As well as the disease and death still to be endured in the decades ahead, the city faces a $100million-plus bill if it wants to clean up the mess left behind.
The city built by Scottish immigrants is, put simply, riddled with asbestos.
As in other parts of the New Zealand, virtually any home built or modified in Dunedin between 1940 and 1990 was likely to harbour asbestos.
It could be found everywhere, from asbestos tiles on the roof and the soffits and gutters surrounding them, and the decorative ceilings, wall claddings and vinyl floors found inside.
• Asbestos: $80m bill for council
The same was true of most commercial buildings constructed from 1940 to 2000, which harboured many of the same threats.
That makes the cost of a city-wide clean-up all the more eye-watering.
"It's significant. It's numbers you couldn't fathom,'' asbestos removalist Trevor Bell, owner of Southern Insulation, told the Otago Daily Times.
"Tens of millions of dollars, especially for some of the big businesses, just in Dunedin alone.''
But the cleaning has already begun, spurred on by new regulations introduced in April which required a more proactive approach to asbestos risk management and other health and safety threats.
Large organisations across Dunedin have begun surveying their properties to understand the extent of the problem and what they need to do - and they are finding it everywhere.
The result has been an explosion of work for companies offering asbestos survey and removal services in Dunedin.
That includes Southern Insulation, which Mr Bell said had been "really busy'' dealing with asbestos-related jobs in recent months.
His company employed 14 staff and normally focused on industrial insulation, but up to 75% of its workload was now asbestos-related, he said.
That included work for the University, Dunedin Hospital and Dunedin City Council, as well as in other centres.
"We can't keep up with a lot of the reporting we're doing,'' he said.
Other companies reported a similar trend, including Salmac Insulation owner Mike Lea, of Dunedin, who said half his company's work was now asbestos-related.
The same is happening across New Zealand and has resulted in a proliferation of companies offering asbestos surveying, testing and removal services.
It has even prompted Precise Consulting & Laboratory, a nationwide company, to open a new office in Dunedin to cope the increasing demand in the South.
"We're fully utilised and we are actively recruiting,'' branch co-ordinator Stuart Cole said.
Mr Lea said Dunedin's asbestos problem had been present "for a long time'', but new health and safety regulations were spurring property owners into action.
A plan to make asbestos registers compulsory had been delayed, for now at least, but the regulations introduced on April 4 still placed more emphasis on building owners to be proactive about asbestos problems.
That was a good thing, but would come at a cost, Mr Lea warned.
"There's a huge cost to do what needs to be done to a lot of the buildings. There's financial implications that attach to it.''
Mr Bell agreed, saying some buildings - particularly on the city's industrial waterfront - were "reaching an age'' where roofs and other asbestos-containing materials needed to be replaced.
The "mechanical deterioration'' of roofs exposed to the elements was already a problem, as movement - such as in high winds - could accelerate the breakup of asbestos materials, releasing fibres, he said.
The new regulations would address that sort of problem, but could open up "a can of worms'' for owners required to act on whatever an asbestos survey revealed, he said.
"It's not so much the cost of getting a survey done ... it's the cost of addressing the problem.
"I can see someone shutting a building and just saying ‘I'm not going to deal with it for the next five years, until I have to'.''
• Perhaps the best example of the asbestos problem, but also its management, can be found at the University of Otago.
The institution boasts a property empire of 353 buildings spread across its Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington campuses, and many are now known to contain asbestos to some degree.
That includes the university's biggest and smallest buildings - from the Clocktower and Arts building to student flats and storage sheds.
And while much of the asbestos is considered safe, the university has already spent up to $3million remedying or removing the worst examples.
That included at its Albany St music studio, which now faced the possibility of complete demolition after the discovery of asbestos prompted restrictions on its use, university health and safety compliance head Andrea McMillan said.
And the cost is only expected to grow.
Staff and students spending time in university buildings were not at risk from exposure to asbestos fibres, he believed.
But the risks still needed careful management - something the university was already doing across campus, Ms McMillan said.
"We have removed an awful lot of asbestos.''
The institution had a register listing all known asbestos locations, and the condition of each, based on visual inspections.
It was also planning a second round of more intrusive examinations, which were about to begin, she said.
Prof Skegg said the extent of the university's problems reflected its size, and the situation it faced "is really no different from the whole country''.
That said, fresh asbestos discoveries were being made on campus every week, as the university's property services staff carried out routine maintenance, and all precautions were taken as each find was addressed, Ms McMillan said.
"It only looks scary because we've done all the right things, and people are geared up and there's plastic sheets everywhere.
"But that's the process.''
IT is a process rolling out across the city, including at the Dunedin City Council, which has so far identified six buildings it owns with asbestos problems.
That includes the city's main aquatic facility, Moana Pool, opened in 1964, which had asbestos in a pump storage area - under the pool level of the building - and in restricted storage areas, it was confirmed in April.
Experts have advised the public areas of the pool are a low risk area for asbestos, but removing what has been found is expected to cost the council an estimated $850,000.
But the council has also found asbestos in part of the Tahuna wastewater treatment plant's roof and nearby buildings, including the Tahuna Park pavilion, used for equipment storage by the council.
That had been isolated, with equipment stuck inside, while the threat was rectified.
So, too, was the Sims building in Port Chalmers, leased by the council to the Port Chalmers Yacht Club, when asbestos was found in April.
The building's locks were changed, with the club's yachts still locked inside, while further testing and cleaning work was carried out.
But perhaps most significantly for ratepayers, the city faces an $80million bill in the years ahead to replace more than 250km of asbestos-based water pipes still in the ground around the city.
The pipes, some of which were still in use, would be replaced with new, non-asbestos varieties as they came up for renewal over the next 50 years, DCC asset and commercial manager Tom Osborn said.
Whether the old pipes were left in the ground or removed was yet to be determined, but in the meantime the land they occupied was being treated as ‘‘contaminated'', he said.
Others are getting to grips with asbestos too, including the Southern District Health Board, which has so far spent at least $1.3million dealing with asbestos in its clinical services building, register lecture block and Fraser Building.
Port Otago also owns three buildings with asbestos in them, including the old Fryatt St sheds, which are earmarked for redevelopment.
Asbestos has also turned up in unusual places over the years - from imported children's crayons to new railway locomotives from China.
In Dunedin, asbestos has been unearthed by volunteers working to extend the Forrester Park BMX track, and in sand dunes at Middle Beach, as the remains of an old landfill were exposed by erosion.
Questions were also asked after it was discovered asbestos-contaminated fill had been used as a base for the widened Caversham highway project.
Contractors working for Cadbury were also removing asbestos from the roof of a disused building inside the complex, a spokeswoman confirmed.
And asbestos even helped derail a plan to lease the former Hillside workshop to a new operator last year, as the cost of cleaning contamination on site - including asbestos - was deemed prohibitive, a KiwiRail spokesman said.
But Dunedin is not alone in tackling asbestos and its costs - the same pattern is playing out in the regions.
In Oamaru, the Waitaki District Council has confirmed the presence of asbestos in parts of at least six buildings, including the Forrester Gallery, Holmes Wharf Building, North Otago RSA and Waitaki District Library.
In Balclutha, the Clutha District Council has been told it will have to spend nearly $150,000 removing and replacing the Kaitangata Memorial Hall's asbestos roof, as part of a wider refit.
The Central Otago, Queenstown is grappling with its own issues, while an asbestos-contaminated boiler has already been removed from Clyde's Blyth St museum.
But the Central Otago District Council still faces a $150,000 bill to remove asbestos-based ceiling textures from inside the office, retail and library complex it owns at 41 Tarbert St, in Alexandra.
Prof Skegg said the extent of the clean-up now under way was a legacy of the popularity of asbestos as a building product for more than half a century.
"It is very ubiquitous,'' he said.
Dunedin's largest employers seemed to be adopting the right approach by having their properties surveyed for asbestos, but smaller enterprises would also need to follow suit in time, he said.
The university was "fortunate'' to have the resources to tackle the problem on campus, but "that's not a common feature of a lot of workplaces'', he cautioned.
But that did not mean removing it all was necessarily the best solution for the city, or the country.
It was often best to leave asbestos alone, as long as the building materials containing it remained in good condition, as removal could actually increase the concentration of asbestos fibres in the air, he warned.
"The fact it's in a building is not a cause for removing.
"It's a hazard and a risk like we have with anything else, but it's managed ... people do take it very seriously, and there's always action.''
