POLSON — If you’ve been down Main Street Polson recently, you may have noticed the Tribal Natural Resources Department building is undergoing some big changes. Those changes are a good start in getting rid of some unhealthy aspects of the old building.

Rich Janssen, acting head of the Tribal Resources Department, said crews began work on Jan. 11 to rid the building of asbestos. Aided with an $80,000 grant that came from federal stimulus money, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have hired a subcontractor to remove the poisonous building material.

“It’s a type of asbestos that isn’t bad as long as it isn’t disturbed,” Janssen said. “It was on the ceiling here, and obviously they had to disturb it to get it out, so we had this area pretty well sealed up.”

Janssen said that thus far, work begun is considered phase one, which consists of the front area of the building where the main doors go out on to Main Street.

About 10 employees were displaced and moved to other offices. The next phase will clean the basement, then an area on the second floor. The plan is to move some employees temporarily into the new Tribal Health building once that is completed in March or April. After a month there, the cleanup will be complete and employees will move back in to the remodeled digs.

“It’s an inconvenience for a while, but a necessary inconvenience to get the asbestos out,” Janssen explained. “[The employees] aren’t happy, but they know they have to deal with it.”

CSKT received the grant money because the project was “shovel ready,” meaning the plan had been created but they didn’t have the funds to execute it.

Janssen said the winter and spring months are an ideal time for the department to complete the cleanup because they don’t have much foot traffic during the colder months.

“Especially with the economy down, people are doing less pier work and upgrades,” he said of the permit work the department does. “The winter months are definitely a down time.”

The Natural Resources Department regulates and is responsible for outdoors permits and construction on Flathead Lake, in addition to hunting permits on the Flathead reservation.