Officials in Routt County and Steamboat Springs are looking for federal support to assist in the required cleanup of West Acres Mobile Home Park properties destroyed by an airplane that crashed there in June.

The pilot of the twin-engine Cessna 421C aircraft had reported engine trouble June 17 before attempting to land at Bob Adams Field.

According to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board, the pilot, Dan Dunn, 67, took off from Vance Brand Airport in Longmont just after 3 p.m. with plans to fly to Ogden, Utah.

Dunn and a passenger, Jessica Melton, 42, were killed when the plane slammed into the West Acres Mobile Home Park around 4:20 p.m. No one on the ground was injured and fire crews were able to quickly extinguish the flames.

According to documents included in the City Council’s agenda for Tuesday, the state’s Department of Public Health and the Environment performed an inspection of the scene after Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigators cleared the site and identified a “significant” amount of asbestos contained in the mobile home debris.

“The debris from the homes remains on site, with a high asbestos level, as neither the mobile homeowners or the park owners have the funds to conduct removal according to the CDPHE requirements, and the insurance companies will not cover even close to the estimated cost,” reads a communication form sent to council members.

According to the city, the estimated cost to remove the asbestos debris is approximately $400,000 for each mobile home but, “neither of the mobile home insurance companies provide this amount of funding or reimbursement for debris removal, nor does the insurance for the mobile home park owner.”

While the aircraft insurance company provides the benefit to the pilot’s and passenger’s next of kin, the liability portion of the coverage is $1 million and the expected cost for claims is expected to exceed that, according to the agenda documents.

Additionally, there is apparently an exclusion in the insurance policy that the aircraft insurance provider is not responsible for asbestos cleanup.

Routt County has already provided some funding through a U.S. Department of Homeland Security emergency grant to erect a fence around the two damaged mobile home sites in hopes of mitigating the potential for asbestos debris to blow into adjacent yards, but more support is needed.

Steamboat City Manager Gary Suiter and Routt County Manager Jay Harrington sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in early October to request assistance through the EPA’s Emergency Response Program.

The city and county have yet to receive a “final word” from the EPA regarding whether the agency can perform the debris removal and cleanup, even as the changing season adds more urgency to the matter.

“It is imperative that the debris removal operations begin as soon as possible,” the letter reads. “Routt County usually begins receiving snowfall in November, and this snow will impede the debris removal operations and increase the hazard to debris removal personnel.”

“Due to the slope of the debris site, it is expected snowmelt in the spring will flow off of the impacted property and onto nearby properties, with the potential to bring asbestos-contaminated material with it,” adds the letter.