(The signs were removed three weeks after I posted this photograph)
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services' final health screening test results are in. Thirty percent of Libby, Montana residents that have been tested have asbestos-related lung abnormalities (Click for news story).
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Background In the summer and fall of 1999, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper investigated and then broke a story (beginning in its November 18, 1999 and November 19, 1999 issues) on mass deaths over decades that have arisen from occupational and even non-occupational exposure to tremolite asbestos dust from vermiculite (Zonolite) mining activities in Libby Montana. The investigation was prompted by a civil court deposition made under oath in 1996 by former mine business manager Earl Lovick which showed that W. R. Grace & Co operated the mine while knowing about the asbestos danger and took no meaningful steps to warn its own workers or the town's residents. After the Post Intelligencer's first articles were published, the early reactions from the local community leaders and local business leaders were of denial and of confusion. As the story has continued to unfold, and as facts become public, the crisis in this small northwestern Montana community has grown.  What is tremolite asbestos, and why is it so deadly? A sampling of asbestos- and mining-related letters to the editor found in northwest Montana newspapers. Excerpts from a civil court deposition in which W. R. Grace and Co. was the defendant. Demographics of the Libby area. "Dust to Dust", the award-winning documentary film on Libby's asbestos crisis.Info on how to borrow or to purchase the video Tiny Libby, Montana has the unenviable distinction of being home to not one Superfund project, but two different Superfund projects. The town's air was poisoned by the mining industry, and its groundwater was poisoned by the logging industry.  Libby, Montana - Asbestos and the Deadly Silence of an American Corporation, by Andrea Peacock. Johnson Books, Boulder, CO.ISBN 1-55566-319-2. Buy it now.  An Air That Kills - how the asbestos poisoning of Libby, Montana uncovered a national scandal, by Andrew Schneider and David McCumber. Buy it now. Listen to a radio interview with the authors of An Air That Kills |
Local Press ReportsTable of Contents
April 14, 2010 Libby City Council endorses proposed Montanore Mine in the Libby area.
February 16, 2010 School sampling turns up traces of asbestos
July 15, 2009 The whining continues. Libby's leaders bash the national media for its reports on the EPA's declaration of a Public Health Emergency for Libby.
June 24, 2009 Obama's EPA comes to Libby's rescue and issues a Public Health Emergency, reversing Bush EPA policy toward Libby.
May 13, 2009 NOT GUILTY - - Jury finds W. R. Grace & Co. and three executives not guilty of all charges.
April 22, 2009 From the archives of the Libby High School's Tamarack newspaper, 1959. `Science Club tours Zonolite Mine'.
Dec. 31, 2008 North Carolina lab lands amphibole-toxicity study grant.
December 13, 2006 Bush EPA tells Libby: We can't promise that your town has been cleaned (or that it is even healthy to live there).
Aug. 12, 2005 Bush administration orders the Libby EPA not to talk to the media.
Feb. 11, 2005 W. R. Grace and Company executives indicted on criminal charges.
Nov. 3, 2004 Federal Grand Jury investigates possible criminal actions by W. R. Grace and Company's executives.
Excerpt from the book "An Air That Kills", regarding Montana U. S. Senator Conrad Burns (R).
April 16, 2003 Forget health emergency declaration, Bush EPA official tells Libby.
June 16, 2003 Bush Adminstration rejects 2nd request from Libby residents to fund health care for its asbestos victims.
June 6, 2003 Republican-backed asbestos bill limits compensation to Libby's asbestosis and mesothelioma victims. Partisan debate heats up.
March 12, 2003 Bush EPA backs away from its promise to completely decontaminate Libby homes - - an editorial
January, 2003 EPA update: Vermiculite sampling and cleanup in Libby.
12/29/2002 Bush Administration blocked the declaration of a Public Health Emergency on Libby's asbestos hazard.
11/13/2002 How much notice will I be given before EPA starts removal of vermiculite from my property?10/18/2002 Residents want Libby to be declared a federal Public Health Emergency.
8/30/2002 A 2nd new documentary film on Libby's asbestos crisis appears in New York City film festival.
8/21/2002 New mortality data on Libby is completed.
5/29/2002 Documentary film on Libby's asbestos crisis to appear at film festivals.
5/29/2002 W. R. Grace and Co. medical program ends some prescription drug coverage for Libby's asbestos victims.
5/8/2002 W. R. Grace and Co. increases denials of medical coverage for Libby asbestos victims.
3/27/2002 Will EPA declare Libby a "Public Health Emergency"?.12/26/2001 Libby prevails against Gov. Martz (R-MT). Governor buckles under grass roots pressure and agrees to "fast-track" the Superfund cleanup for community.
10/17/2001 Gov. Martz (R-Montana) rejects Superfund fast-track option for Libby.
8/29/2001 Medical screening results back-up the preliminary results - - 30% of tested Libby residents have lung abnormalities.
8/15/2001 Libby residents stand up to Governor Martz (R-Montana). The governor gets an ear-full at Libby's town meeting.
7/12/2001 Libby businesses fearful of Superfund designation for the town.
6/6/2001 Do people lose their property rights under Superfund?5/25/2001 Victim's memorial moving forward.
5/23/2001 "Superfund" designation for Libby offers best assurance for asbestos cleanup.
5/16/2001 Health screening for children not useful, says ATSDR.
4/18/2001 What is EPA doing at Plummer Elementary School in Libby?3/28/2001 Libby asbestos-contaminated road is considered for paving for dust control.
3/14/2001 Libby medical community gearing up for numerous asbestos patients.
3/9/2001 State Senator Bill Crismore (R-Libby) is criticized for siding with W. R. Grace & Company.
2/28/2001 U.S. Senator Baucus (D-Montana) plans filibuster if the pro-asbestos industry's liability-limiting bill is revived.
2/14/2001 Did you use the Libby High School outdoor sports track during the early 1970's - 1983 (or did you compete there as a visiting althlete)? Read this article on asbestos contaimination there.
12/8/2000 Lincoln County, Montana ranks second in asbestosis death.
10/20/2000 Medical Screening results begin to arrive in Libby residents'mailboxes. Results raise even more concern.
10/4/2000 Cleanup could be delayed at least one year -- Libby's asbestos removal halted as W. R. Grace keeps feds at bay.
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: October 4, 2000
CLEANUP COULD BE DELAYED AT LEAST ONE YEAR --Asbestos removal halted as Grace keeps feds at bay
By David F. Latham
Editor of The Montanian
Despite pleas for cooperation by county officials and about 90 other community leaders and members, W. R. Grace & Company continues to keep its newly reacquired mine site and related properties closed to the government, effectively stopping the cleanup of deadly tremolite asbestos near Libby.
Grace says it is concerned about worker safety and alleged chemical contamination of soil that would be returned to the company's property, which was formerly a vermiculite mine.
Meanwhile, many Libby residents want Grace to reopen the site. The Community Advisory Group (CAG) voted unanimously (with 23 members present) at its Sept. 14 meeting to request that Grace cooperate "with all due haste" to give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency access to Grace property near the Raintree Nursery site, and to Grace's former vermiculite mine site, which the company recently repurchased and then closed.
Also last week, 64 Libby residents signed letters to Grace asking the company to allow the cleanup to continue.
Grace's refusal to cooperate is expected to delay the cleanup until next spring at the earliest, according to the EPA.
Grace contends that the deadly tremolite asbestos waste it left behind after 30 years of mining cannot be returned to its source at the mine because it may be contaminated with horticultural chemicals from Raintree Nursery, which occupied the screening plant site for several years after Grace closed the mine and plant in 1990.
".... there is the question of what, if any, chemicals contaminate the soil the EPA proposes to dump at the former mine site," wrote Alan Stringer, Grace's representative in Libby, in a response Sept. 27 to the CAG. "Since the screening property was a working nursery for the last six years, we assume that some horticultural chemicals were spilled and soaked into the soil. EPA has not told us differently."
But EPA says there is no significant contamination.
"With regard to the horticultural chemicals in the soil at the screening plant (the Raintree Nursery site) and the adjacent properties, EPA is aware of the fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides and all those kinds of things," said Wendy Thomi, EPA's community involvement coordinator, in a verbal response to Stringer's letter at the Sept. 28 CAG meeting.
"As we investigated the site we saw [the chemicals] there. They were containerized, very neatly kept, but we did a detailed interview with the Parkers [owners of Raintree Nursery] to determine what their operations were like and how they used those chemicals," Thomi said.
"Based on that interview, it was determined that they used them in containers on the trees and plants they used them on ... they didn't do any large-scale broadcasting of these chemicals to spill them on the ground or just sort of apply them to the ground, and Paul [Peronard of EPA] didn't think that was an issue ... " Thomi said.
"We were satisfied that this wasn't an issue and Grace has raised the point in this letter. They first raised the point last week to the Department of Justice and [Peronard] says it's the first time he's had this issue raised to him," she said.
"What EPA will do now is we'll go ahead if Grace wants us to sample for pesticides, we'll sample for pesticides and fertilizers, etcetera, now that they've raised the issue, and we'll also sample for pesticides and fertilizers and that type of thing up at the mine site," Thomi said.
Grace also contends that it will somehow be liable for EPA workers and contractors while they are on Grace's newly acquired property.
" ... we must know who is reponsible for the safety of the workers that [sic] will be moving the dirt from the old screening plant to the former mine, if access is granted," Stringer wrote.
"We believe that the EPA should take full responsibility for the safety of its contractors, no matter whos property they are on," Stringer wrote.
Thomi said EPA offers the same range of coverage as is offered on any job site.
"EPA takes great measures to protect the workers and we do it through a variety of methods," Thomi said.
"We have bonds, we have very rigorous health and safety standards, traffic regulations, day-to-day operation, liability insurance, all kinds of things we do to protect both EPA employees and contractors [who] work with us," she said.
The real issue not addressed in Stringer's letter is that Grace doesn't want to pay the cost of insuring workers while the cleanup takes place.
Thomi, however, did address it.
"At superfund sites across the country this issue hasn't come up. It hasn't been an issue before and EPA's position ... is that since EPA is doing this cleanup because of material that Grace left behind, EPA views the costs that are associated with worker safety to be part and parcel of the cleanup costs and therefore, yes, they are Grace's responsibilty," Thomi said.
Stringer makes one point in his letter that does not accurately reflect Grace's control of asbestos-contaminated properties near the Kootenai River. He write: "Grace has no control over the screening plant; in fact, Grace is barred from entering the property."
Grace does hoever own properties next to the screening plant and Thomi clarified it in her response.
"With regard to Mr. Stringer saying that Grace has no control over the screening plant, there are three [Grace-owned] properties by the river adjacent to the screening plant that need clearnup. These are controlled by Grace and Grace has denied us acess to them," Thomi said.
"Oct. 18 is the date that Paul [Peronard] is looking at for delaying the cleanup on those properties. ... If we don't have access to them by then, the cleanup will wait until next year," Thomi said.
Despite the halt to the cleanup that has been imposed by Grace, Stringer insists that the company wants to cooperate.
"We have tried to negotiate these issues with EPA, but failed. We are open to restarting negotiations, and prefer that course, but are prepared to meet the EPA in court if we must," Stringer wrote.
But Grace's alleged willingness to cooperate has not yet translated itself into meaningful action and the cleanup will probably be delayed well into next year.
"With regard to 'trying to negotiate with EPA', as Mr. Stringer points out in the letter ... Grace was offered the opportunity to view both the cleanups at the export plant [in town] and the screening plant [Raintree Nursery] voluntarily under a consent order, and they refused to do both of those cleanups. So then EPA was forced to issue a unilateral order for [Grace] at the export plant and the Parkers [owners of Raintree Nursery] refused access to Grace and EPA took on the cleanup at [Raintree Nursery]," Thomi said.
"... They have volunteered many times in the newspapers, but when it comes down to actually doing the work and making the agreements, EPA has not been able to accept the conditions that Grace has placed on their doing the work," Thomi said.
In this latest exchange Grace fails to mention that it would have no liability for workers or chemical contamination at the mine site if it hadn't recently bought a controlling interest in Kootenai Development Corp., which is the legal owner of the properties.
Meanwhile, cleanup at the Raintree Nursery site is continuing, although the asbestos-contaminated soil cannot be removed.
"With regards to the cleanup, minor amounts of excavation are left to do at the screening plant," Thomi said. "Oct. 1 ... is the deadline [EPA is] looking at for taking the stockpiled soil [contaminated with asbestos] up to the mine site, if we don't have access from Grace," she said.
>From 1963 to 1990, Grace operated a vermiculite mine near Libby in which deadly tremolite asbestos was a major waste by-product. Grace operated the mine while knowing about the asbestos danger and took no meaningful steps to warn workers or residents. As a result, at least 88 wokers died and at least 300 people are currently diagnosed with terminal asbestos-related illnesses. Persons diagnosed include former workers, their family members, and even people who had no connection to the mine other than to live in Libby.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 10/20/2000
SCREENING LETTERS RING HOSPITAL PHONES
By Ray Stout
Western News Reporter
People concerned with the results of their medical screening for asbestos related diseases should call the testing agency after they receive a letter before ringing their doctor, says the Libby hospital administrator.
The letters, from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, were first sent out in a batch of about 125 during the first week in October. They're sent first to the patient's personal physicians to give them a heads-up about the patient.
The patient is sent their copy of the letter about a week later. And some have begun calling their doctors.
The letters in Libby are expected to peak at about 400 a week, said Rick Palagi, administrator and chief executive officer of St. John's Lutheran Hospital. And in this town, that's a lot to handle for the handful of doctors.
This is a massive amount of contacts," Palagi said. "It's going to be a lot of work to follow up with these individuals and patients on the part of the hospital or the part of the doctors. You can imagine the logistics of having to go through those and having the dedication to go through those."
The screening is checking local people [and ex-residents] for asbestos-related diseases such as lung scarring, thickening of the lung lining, lung cancers, and others due to asbestos from a former vermiculite mine near Libby.
The diseases have hit miners, mill-workers, and Libby residents. There are no known cures for the ills brought by tremolite asbestos, a microscopic mineral fiber.
More than 6,000 people have been scheduled for the screenings, which began in July and are scheduled to end Nov. 2. Thursday is the last day for to register for an appointment.
The letters from ATSDR discuss the results of the three-part test: the chest X-rays, the breathing demonstration and the health-history interview. The letters are being mailed about three months after the person is screened.
Palagi didn't know how many phone calls doctors were getting, but it's more than plenty, he said.
"We think it's going to be a fairly high number just because of human nature. We're anxious about the information that we got," Palagi said.
Some of the letters will mention the need for follow-up testing, he said. He didn't know what percentage.
"Our guess - our guess - at this time is that about 10 percent of the people that go through the screening process need to be contacted pretty quickly," Palagi said. (See this update: internal link)
People found to have a potentially serious abnormality were contacted shortly after their test date, he said. Most of the letters coming now are for the non-urgent cases.
Serving anxious people is what the hospital is working on, Palagi said.
"We're trying to be ready to talk to them," he said. "And we're hoping to do a coordinated effort. Let us get our coordination in place."
Involved in that effort will be the Libby-based Center for Asbestos-related Disease, or CARD clinic.
Before calling their doctor, Palagi said, letter recipients with questions or concerns should call the ATSDR number in the letter, (404)639-6200. That's because the doctors may not have all the patient's information at the time, he said.
And don't worry too much if the letter indicates no problems, Palagi said.
"If they get this information and it sounds okay, then they should not be too anxious about it," he said.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 12/8/2000
By Lynnette Hintze
Special to The Western News
Lincoln County ranks second on a list of the top 10 U.S. counties for death rates from asbestosis, a federal study shows.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health regularly tracts asbestosis mortality rates, and discovered during its latest update that only Somerset County, N.J. had more asbestos deaths per capita than Lincoln County from 1968-1997. The data was compiled from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Asbestosis is the scarring of lung tissue from inhalation of needle-like asbestos fibers. The disease's effects range from mild impairment to disability and eventually death. Libby's asbestosis deaths are linked to the former W. R. Grace vermiculite mine.
The raw numbers are somewhat misleading. Heavily populated Somerset County, where the Johns-Manville Company manufactured asbestos insulation, had 447 asbestos deaths during the 31-year period. Sparsely populated Lincoln County, on the other hand, had only 23 documented deaths from asbestosis.
But the rates of death for the two counties paint a bleak picture indeed: Somerset's asbestosis death rate was 8.8 per 100,000 people, while Lincoln Countiy's was 5.7 per 100,000 people. That compares to the overall U. S. rate of just 0.29 per 100,000 people.
The numbers include any deaths with the underlying or contributing cause of death coded as asbestosis.
Other areas with high asbestosis mortality rates included Sagadahoc County in Maine, Jackson County in Mississippi, and Orange County in Texas, all of which had ship-building operations that used high amounts of asbestos.
"In some cases, these counties pop up with high rates and we don't know exactly why," said Frank Hearl, deputy director of the agency's Division of Respiratory Disease Studies. "It's there along with a lot of other information."
The data is the impetus for the agency to study environmental factors that contribute to asbestos disease, he said.
Currently, the agency is planning new research to help determine the distribution and concentration of asbestos contamination in vermiculite produced by various mines and used in various occupational settings.
Through sampling, federal health workers can better define the extent of potential occupational exposure, Hearl said.
The agency has been involved in asbestos research in Libby for the past two decades. In the 1980's the agency conducted a study about job-related exposure and health effects among workers employed at the Libby mine, and shared those findings with workers and W. R. Grace & Company. Grace closed the mine in 1990.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 2/14/2001
By Brent Shrum
Western News Reporter
The Libby School District is looking for help from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up asbestos-contaminated mill tailings sealed beneath the high school and middle school tracks.
The district used tailings from W. R. Grace's vermiculite mine and mill complex from the early 1970s until 1983. The LHS track was encapsulated with asphalt after Grace warned the district that asbestos fibers in the tailings could pose problems.
In a letter sent last week to EPA officials, school superintendent Kirby Maki said the district is "extremely concerned" about the tailings. Maki asked the EPA to conduct tests at the tracks, remove the tailings and replace them with fill material, and reinstall the track surfaces.
"I don't know what's going to happen, but at least they're going to look at that," Maki said. "They are going to do some testing and if there are materials posing a health threat they'll have to get them removed."
Because the tailings are encapulated in asphalt, Maki said he doesn't think they pose a present danger. But the tracks are in need of repair and replacement, he said.
"Just having it there on school property is a liability I don't think we should have at this point in time," he said.
The EPA needs to determine the extent of the contamination, Maki said. In addition to use on the track itself, piles of tailings were stored around the area for application to the track when needed, he said.
"Hopefully they'll do some testing and if we have any problems, they'll take care of it for us or hold W. R. Grace responsible for it," he said.
Grace tested the track in 1981 and found what a company memo called "surprisingly high" fiber concentrations stirred up by runners. On a hot, dry, windless July day, fiber concentrations were measured at 0.14 fibers per cubic centimeter of air for the lead runner and 0.22 fibers per cc for a following runner.
At the time of testing, the track was compacted due to recent rains and lack of use. No dust was visible.
According to the memo, short-term concentrations as high as 1.0 fibers per cc may have been possible when the track was in well-used condition and in use by a number of people.
2010 update on asbestos contamination on Libby's school properties.
-From the Missoulian Newspaper, Missoula, Montana
Date: 2/28/2001
Associated Press
HELENA - U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana) has threatened a filibuster if the U. S. Senate tries to revive a bill that would exempt asbestos companies from paying punitive damages to asbestos victims.
"I've made my opposition loud and clear on allowing asbestos companies off the hook," Baucus wrote to top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I'll filibuster in the Senate any attempts to bail out asbestos companies at the expense of victims. That's not fair, and I'll fight it tooth and nail."
The Montana Democrat's letter went to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the committee chairman, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, its ranking Democratic member.
Baucus referred to S. 758, which he opposed last year. He said it would shield asbestos companies from punitive damages for fraudulent or reckless actions and eliminated compensation to victims for pain and suffering or emotional distress.
He said the bill could have eliminated the legal rights of possibly 80 percent of the injured residents of Libby, where hundreds have died or been sickened over decades by asbestos from the defunct W. R. Grace and Co. vermiculite mine.
Baucus said in a news release that he also has invited the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, to attend a hearing in Libby on April 11 by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The hearing is intended to discuss the needs of people exposed to asbestos and cleanup efforts for the Grace mine. Baucus is a member of the committee.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry released results last week on its first screenings of Libby residents. The tests found 30 percent of the first 1,071 people tested had some degree of lung abnormalities.
An EPA spokesman in Libby said the tests were alarming and "far worse than anything we'd been expecting."
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 3/9/2001
By Roger Morris
Western News Publisher
Minutes before presenting his bill Thursday morning creating an "asbestos court" to hurry along pending lawsuits against W. R. Grace, State Sen. Bill Crismore (R-Libby) discussed the firestorm of publicity accusing him of "selling out" to the company.
The senator chuckled at accusations he was representing the chemical giant. "I couldn't even get a job with them," he said.
"My position is we need to sit down and talk," Crismore continued. "When I meet again with the governor, I will ask her how we can sort this out. There definately needs to be a different approach."
On Monday, Crismore met with Gov. Judy Marz (R) and was quoted as saying the Environmental Protection Agency is being too tough on Grace, who mined the asbestos-tainted vermiculite in the Libby area from 1961 until they closed the mine in 1990.
"The EPA, I think, has made some real mistakes," Crismore said in a meeting with Martz. "The EPA is guilty of not being fair with people in Libby."
That unleashed a backlash of comment in the media from Libby asbestos victims.
Gayla Benefield of Libby, an advocate for asbestos victims who has criticized Crismore's lack of involvement, said she's incensed about the senator's alliance with Grace.
"Apparently, W. R. Grace has another spokesperson," Benefield said. "It's a slap in the face to have our senior elected official take this approach. He literally has sold us out." He's never been to a Community Advisory Group meeting, Benefield said. "He has never spoken publicly to the victims or for the victims," she continued.
Crismore responded by saying he is presenting a bill that will help Libby asbestos victims suing Grace. Presently, the district court is able to schedule about three lawsuits a year while more than 100 have been filed by Libby residents against Grace.
Grace has been blamed for nearly 200 deaths and hundreds of illnesses due to asbestos exposure.
Also, Crismore was criticized by many Libby residents last year for supporting the federal "Fairness in Asbestos Compensation Act" as the best way to resolve the thousands of asbestos-related lawsuits clogging the nation's court system. The proposed legislation did not pass, despite heavy lobbying from the asbestos industry.
On Thursday, the Libby senator said he would continue to support such federal legislation because it was the only way some victims would get assistance. He said if all these corporations are driven out of business, there will be no one left to pay the bills, except the U.S. taxpayers.
"So I don't think I'm opposed to helping asbestos victims in Libby," he said. "I know people who have died of asbestosis and I feel bad about it. I know people who have been diagnosed having asbestosis and I feel bad about it."
On a more personal note: Crismore is sensitive to criticisms of his late friend, Earl Lovick. Lovick was a business manager for Grace during its tenure in Libby and many of the lawsuits have been filed against Lovick or his family trust along with Grace. [Footnote: W. R. Grace mine business manager Earl Lovick ran Crismore's state senate campaign.- - Web site editor]
"I'm not going to sit aside and let people make comments about people I care about," Crismore said. "Earl Lovick was a good man who cared about this community. If he [Lovick] had known it was unsafe to work at the mine he never would have sent his sons up there to work."
Crismore said his major concern is the failure of the EPA and Grace to reach a solution to their stalemate on cleaning up the former screening plant site and depositing contaminated material at the former mine site.
"I think the EPA is doing a poor job of negotiating," he said. "We can't be having statements like, `I will get my pound of flesh.' "
The EPA sued Grace last fall after it [Grace] bought a controlling interest in Kootenai Development Corporation, which owns former Grace properties near Libby, and locked the federal agency out of at first accessing the former mine site and then depositing contaminated materials there.
Following a Dec. 20 hearing in federal court in Missoula, a judge ordered the two parties to try to work out their problems in mediation. Those efforts fell through, in part because of a $5 million penalty the EPA plans to levy against Grace.
According to local Grace representative Alan Stringer, the penalty was the primary reason the negotiations fell apart. EPA on-scene coordinator Paul Peronard said the company was also unwilling to perform cleanup operations under an enforceable order from the agency.
"I'm not saying Grace has done a good job, either," Crismore said.
That's why he wants to sit down with the governor and try to mediate a solution.
However, Crismore said inflamatory comments from EPA officials in Libby and demands for Grace to pay high penalties have heightened the already emotional situation there.
"In my opinion, Grace is trying to do what they can," said Crismore, who commented that the company has adjusted a medical plan for the victims several times to better serve them. [but see: 1, 2 - - website editor].
"It's not my nature to be abrasive, but this is ridiculous," said Robbin Redman of Troy. "The EPA's only mistake was leaving in the 1980s when their budget was cut. They're doing their job now."
Redman, her three sisters, a brother, and her mother have all been diagnosed with asbestos disease; her father already died of the disease.
She intends to speak with Crismore on Thursday while she's in Helena to support Crismore's bill to add a second district judge to Lincoln County to handle asbestos lawsuits.
"I'll tell him how my family has been affected," she said.
"Grace has never done anything without foot-dragging and stonewalling."
[Governor] Martz said she planned to contact newly appointed EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman about visiting Libby to futher discuss the situation with Grace and state officials. U.S. Senator Max Baucus invited Whitman to attend an April 11 Senate field hearing in Libby.
"You just wonder how far you'll be able to go with Grace before they decide they'll just declare bankruptcy," Martz said.
Crismore also said the ongoing controversy surrounding cleanup has been unnecessary.
"If they would have allowed Grace to do the cleanup under their supervision, it would have already been settled," he said.
Paul Peronard, the EPA's on-site coordinator in Libby, called Grace's attempt to volunteer for cleanup "bogus".
"Grace has said they'll do voluntary cleanup, but they don't want us to have the ability to check things like air quality," he said.
Peronard also said the $5 million in penalties mentioned by Crismore were instituted because Grace interfered with access at the site and are meant to discourage companies from inappropriate behavior.
Peronard said he welcomed the opportunity for all agencies to discuss the ongoing cleanup productively.
This story was written with the assistance of Lynnette Hintze of the Kalispell Daily Inter Lake and Associated Press reports.
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 3/14/2001
Special to The Montanian
by Jeanie Gentry
The Center for Asbestos Related Diseases (CARD) clinic, Libby Clinic and Prompt Care have teamed up to respond to the flood of patients needing follow-up evaluation by a physician.
Thousands of Libby-area residents recently received letters from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) saying that their asbestos medical screening results from last year showed some type of abnormality that needs further evaluation.
Physicians at Libby Clinic are primary healthcare providers for many people in the community. Other patients turn to Prompt Care for their healthcare questions. However, in responding to the large number of questions and appointments for the asbestos screening, patients who normally go to Libby Clinic or Prompt Care are being asked by their physicians to instead have their first visit at the CARD clinic with Dr. Brad Black. Doctors Phelps and Knecht have asked that their patients continue to call them first to coordinate follow-up.
"Going to the CARD clinic with Dr. Black is really the best way to evaluate patients with some abnormality on their screening results."
"Once Dr. Black has determined whether or not a patient has an asbestos-related disease, he will then work with the person's regular physician to develop an ongoing plan of care for the patient. But the first visit needs to be with Dr. Black," Rice said.
The CARD clinic offers the evaluation visit at no charge to patients and is set up to handle the volume of calls needed at this time, observed Pat Cohan, program director at the CARD.
"However, the sheer volume of mailings from the ATSDR will slow us down too. We want you to call us but also understand it may take us some time to work you in," Cohan said.
"Even if you are normally a patient at Libby Clinic, you can call the CARD for information specifically about asbestos related diseases, or about the letter you received from the screening program," said Cohan.
Dr. Black has been working closely with Dr. Alan Whitehouse of Spokane to help him better evaluate patients with asbestos-related diseases. Dr. Whitehouse is consulting with Dr. Black as needed.
Patients who have received a letter and need more information or an appointment with Dr. Black can call the CARD Clinic at (406)293-9274.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 3/28/2001
By Brent Shrum
Western News Reporter
With plans moving ahead for the disposal of asbestos-contaminated materials at the former W. R. Grace vermiculite mine, the Environmental Protection Agency is looking into the possibility of paving Rainy Creek Road to control dust.
Testing has shown the presence of asbestos fibers in the road, which leads to the mine site. EPA officials met with Forest Service representiatives recently to discuss paving the road, EPA on-scene coordinator Duc Nguyen said at last Thursday's meeting of the Libby Community Advisory Group. Another meeting is planned for April 2.
"When we get all the parties together, hopefully we can reach some kind of agreement on what we want to do with that situation," Nguyen said.
The lower portion of the road is maintained by the county. In the mine area, the road is owned by Kootenai Development Corp. - which bought the property after the mine closed but which is now controlled by Grace - on a special use permit from the Forest Service.
"I don't think that anyone has an answer as to what they want to do with it now," said Grace representative Alan Stringer.
The road was built with material from gravel pits but mine tailings were used to sand the road in the winter, Stringer said. He suggested that contamination could probably be removed by scraping the top of the road.
"I personally think paving is not a good thing," he said, because of potential maintenance problems.
Lincoln County Commissioner Rita Windom said she has had only "the briefest discussions" with the EPA on the road issue. Closing the road is not an option because access must be provided to private property, Windom said.
The EPA plans to use the mine site for the disposal of asbestos-contaminated soil excavated from the former screening plant site at the base of Rainy Creek Road. Those plans were put on hold last fall after Grace bought a controlling interest in Kootenai Development Corp. and locked out the EPA, but a federal judge in Missoula recently ordered the company to let the agency in.
In other business, the CAG:
•Heard a report from Nguyen that testing is ongoing for asbestos contamination on school and other public properties in the Libby area. Samples have been taken at the high school and middle school tracks to test for contamination from vermiculite mine and mill tailings used in the 1970s.
Additional samples will be taken from other school properties where tailings may have been used, Nguyen said. Sampling will also be conducted at city parks and daycare facilities, he said.
•Received an update on health screenings from Dan Strausbaugh of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. To date, 5,680 result letters have been sent to people who participated in the screening last summer and fall. The remaining 670 will be mailed the first week of April, Strausbaugh said.
Due to recent publicity over results from the screenings, the agency is seeing a significant increase in the numbers of people qualifying for screening who are calling a toll-free information number [1-800-439-8308], Strausbaugh said. About 2,000 people are on a list for another round of screening that will be scheduled when funding becomes available. Those people include those who were eligible for screening last year but didn't make an appointment or didn't show up as well as those who contacted ATSDR after the screening deadline passed.
The number of people calling the toll-free number increased from one or two a week to 55 in one week two weeks ago, Strausbaugh said.
•Accepted the resignation of the Lincoln County Commissioners as CAG members. Windom said the commissioners decided they needed to resign because they will be taking on a "quasi-judicial" role when a formal investigation of asbestos-related issues commences.
The commissioners will continue to attend CAG meetings.
Official notice from the U.S. Evironmental Protection Agency, 4/18/2001
ASK EPA !! - - Questions and Answers about Asbestos and EPA's InvestigationQ:What is EPA doing at Plummer School?
A: EPA is putting a cover on the old ice rink to seal off asbestos contaminated ore that was found during sampling. It was discovered that vermiculite tailings were used as a base material for the rink. The temporary cover - - a tarp and 4 inches of sand - - will be replaced with a permanent cleanup when school is out this summer.
EPA will continue to sample all Libby schools and public parks and will take immediate action if we find asbestos contamination.
Please call or write to EPA if you know of a public place where people are exposed to raw vermiculite ore. You can write to EPA at:
EPA Community Involvement
EPA Region 8 Montana Office
Federal Office Building
10 W 15th St.
Suite 3200
Helena, MT 59626
For more information, please call:
Wendy Thomi, EPA Community Involvement Coordinator at (406)457-5037
or toll free: 1-866-457-2690, extention 5037
Paul Peronard, EPA On-Scene Coordinator at 1-800-227-8917, extension 6808.
More on asbestos contamination on Libby's school properties.
2010 update on asbestos contamination on Libby's school properties.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 5/16/2001
By Ray Stout
Western News Reporter
A large-scale X-ray program for past Plummer students wouldn't be worthwhile, said Dan Strausbaugh of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
"We don't have the clinical ability at this point to make screening a useful tool for children," Strausbaugh told the school administrators on Tuesday, May 8, 2001.
Strausbaugh and two federal environment representatives were meeting with school principals and the superintendent at the district's Central Administration Building. It was the first of regular Tuesday meetings for the group to discuss how to manage the asbestos, a known cause of fatal diseases, found on school properties.
Vermiculite contaminated by asbestos has been found at Plummer School, Libby Middle School and Libby High School. At Plummer, vermiculite was placed beneath a former ice-skating rink.
Last month, the 5,600-square foot area was covered with plastic and sand and surrounded by snowfence.
At the middle school and high school, vermiculite was used to surface the oval athletic tracks because it compacted well, said administrator John Kratofil, who coached track in the 1970s and early '80s. They have since been covered by rubber or asphalt.
That has minimized the chance of inhaling the asbestos, said Wendy Thomi, community involvement coordinator for the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"We don't believe people are at risk today," Thomi said. "People running around that track may be exposed to a little asbestos, as we all are in the highly industrialized world. But they are not high-risk."
As for testing Plummer students, it's too early to do any good for the present and many former alumni, she said. Even after a significant exposure, like in a room full of asbestos-laden dust, "you might not see anything on your lungs for 20 to 40 years," Thomi said.
"We're not talking about anywhere near that kind of exposure," Thomi said of the vermiculite found on school properties.
Other variables complicate how a child might be exposed, she said. Those include how often they walked over the ice rink and how much snow cover there might have been.
Rather than a testing program targeted specifically at children, it might be better to encourage them to have their physician check their lungs every few years to see if any asbestosis, mesothelioma or lung cancers are progressing.
That would help individuals and families in their own decision-making, such as whether or not to smoke cigarettes, Strausbaugh said. Tobacco use significantly increases the chances of developing the diseases.
"In 15 years we'll probably know a heck of a lot more about asbestos," Thomi said. "We're learning all the time."
Many past Plummer students are already eligible for the free testing by ATSDR: anyone who is now 18 or older who lived, worked or played in Libby for at least six months through 1990.
Strausbaugh said his agency hopes to screen people coming to town for school class reunions. The second round of testing, primarily for eligible people who missed last year's screening, is scheduled to begin the first week of August, 2001.
The vermiculite was mined and processed near Libby for nearly 70 years until 1990. It was used as insulation in local buildings, and as a garden soil additive throughout twon. Children are known to have played in the piles of vermiculite near the expansion plant close to downtown. The plant is blamed for releasing asbestos fibers into the air.
Thomi reported the district's other two schools, McGrade and Asa Wood elementaries, also had their interiors inspected and their air and dust sampled in January, 2000. No asbestos problems were found inside, and no asbestos was detected in samples of the play grounds and walkways.
"For all the schools, the idea now is to grid them off and give them a systematic covering over the grounds," said Paul Peronard, EPA on-site coordinator for asbestos abatement.
At the three schools where asbestos has been found, the goal is to get the mineral removed soon, Peronard said.
People should be free to focus on any asbestos in their lungs and not have to worry about asbestos in the ground, he said.
"We'll close that environmental loop this summer," he said. "I don't want to be talking about this next year."
There are some obstacles, however: summer school, Shakespeare in the Parks plays at the middle school in August, and Nordicfest looming ahead in September. The goal is to get done before school starts.
Some events could delay removal, Peronard said, because he doesn't want people around while the work is under way.
"The best of all worlds, you don't have civilians around your work site," he said. "You have clearly defined boundaries and signs that say, 'Please stay away.' "
He would prefer the boundaries be those of the school grounds, because they're already in place and clearly marked, he said.
Having school administrators meet with federal agency representatives each week is the way to go, said school district Superintendent Kirby Maki.
"Up to a certain point I'm not sure what we can do to help," he said, "but I think we're on the right track here."
2010 update on asbestos contamination on Libby's school properties.
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 5/23/2001
Federal Superfund status is the surest way to clean up Libby's widespread asbestos contamination, but local residents must want the designation, and the final decision will rest with Gov. Judy Martz, according to U. S. Environmental Protection Agency workers who spoke to Libby residents May 17 at the Community Advisory Group meeting.
"It's very much a community-driven process," said David Williams, Superfund listing coordinator for the EPA's regional office in Denver.
But asbestos victim's advocate Gayla Benefield - a supporter of Superfund status for Libby - said she is concerned to learn that Gov. Judy Martz (R-Montana) and state environmental officials could have veto power over the designation. Benefield said state officials denied for years that there was any problem with the W. R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine (external link), and they have not contributed significantly to the cleanup over the past 18 months.
Grace's former mining and milling operation near Libby have been linked to at least 88 asbestos-related deaths and hundreds of illnesses among former mine workers, their families, and even Libby residents who had no connection to the mine.
"These [state officials] are the same people who may end up making the decision over what goes on here," Benefield said. "It makes me very uncomfortable."
Audience member Neil Bauer said angrily, "I find it appalling that the governor would have absolute power over what happens."
The Martz administration (R) has made almost no comment about Libby's asbestos problem and Martz herself has shown no interest in it (external link).
In the next three or four months, the EPA will discuss with the governor's office and Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) how best to handle the problems in Libby, Williams said. He and Paul Peronard, EPA's on-scene coordinator in Libby, will develop a proposal to list the town and adjacent mine site on the EPA's National Priorities List - more commonly known as Superfund - then open the issue for public comment. They will meet with the Martz administration and encourage residents to make their feelings known to the governor about the potential Superfund sites.
Peronard said the governor has near-veto power over Superfund listings because for years, state and local officials and residents have demanded greater local control over such high-profile projects. Williams said that in recent years, the regional EPA office has made 14 Superfund list recommendations and all were accepted by Western governors, including five by former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot.
But, Williams said, while the governor's support is crucial to what happens in Libby, the EPA could override a governor's rejection if federal officials believe the problem is serious enough. That has happened only once in the past six years since EPA started its drive to gain local support for Superfund projects.
Initial EPA proposals would create two Superfund sites in Libby. One would encompass the town itself and the other would include the former vermiculite mine site. Peronard said two separate Superfund sites would allow cleanup in town to move more quickly so the town could get off the list before the mine, which is a longer-term project.
The EPA is currently removing asbestos contamination from the Libby area with money from its emergency sites project. Peronard said the tab this year will come to an estimated $16 million for all EPA work related to Libby, far surpassing his actual budget.
Williams said Superfund listing would ensure the work continues and guarantee long-term federal funding for the area, since emergency program priorities can change at any time within the EPA.
Peronard said that while the Superfund designation carries a potentially damaging label, the stigma of lingering asbestos pollution would be even worse.
EPA studies have shown that property values initially drop in an area when it's added to the list. However, he said, values increase and economies become stable again once an area gets cleaned up.
"That negative impact is actually measurable and very real," said Peronard. "You're never going to get over that hurdle if you don't start showing progress."
Asbestos contamination is widespread in Libby, where hundreds of homes have vermiculite insulation that needs to be safely removed. Hundreds of homes also have the product in gardens. Vermiculite has also been found under the running tracts at Libby High School and Middle School, and under the sand playground at Plummer School, where it was used as fill.
The CAG [Libby's Community Advisory Group] also heard reports of another newfound area of asbestos contamination. An official from Burlington Northern-Sante Fe Railroad reported that his work crews have found extremely high levels of surfaces asbestos on railroad tracks that used to carry vermiculite from the mine and still go through town.
Peronard said tests show the tracks have the highest levels of airborne asbestos yet found in Libby. He said he would meet this week with railroad officials, who plan to clean the tracks and contaminated area.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 5/25/2001
A dedication ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. on Monday, Memorial Day for the asbestos victim's memorial at the City of Libby Cemetary.
Initially the memorial was to be on a private land site along U.S. Highway 2 on the south side of Libby. Use of the land was turned down by a former Libby businessman after repeated requests from other business people and residents citing it as "too high profile" and negatively affecting tourism, said Mike Switzer, a member of the Community Advisory Group subcommittee working on the project.
The Libby City Council solved the problem of where to place the 160-plus white crosses for the asbestos victim's memorial after a request by victim's advocate Gayla Benefield.
The council gave permission for the victim's memorial to be located at the Rose Garden area, in the southeast corner of the Libby Cemetary.
Presently there are over 160 victim's names submitted to the memorial committee, and many more are expected after the memorial is visited and family members remember others who are not displayed there.
Local businesses donated materials toward the project. Western Building Center and Cardinal True Value has provided the wood while Mort Curtiss and his shop students at Libby High School are building the crosses. Gene's Body Shop and Best Auto Body Shop donated the labor to paint the crosses white. The paint comes from NAPA and Valley Motor Supply. Libby graphic artist Stephanie Berry is stenciling the names on each cross.
Committee members are going to start erecting the crosses on Thursday evening, May 24, 2001 at 7:00 p.m. Volunteers are needed to help.
Official notice from the U.S. Evironmental Protection Agency, 6/6/2001
ASK EPA !! - - Questions and Answers about Asbestos and EPA's Investigation(excerpt)Q: If Libby becomes a Superfund site, do citizens lose any legal rights concerning their homes and businesses?
A: No. For information about property owner rights; property values; buying and selling property; and liability, please read EPA's document Superfund Today: Focus on Property Issues. The Fact Sheet can be picked up at EPA's Information Center at 501 Mineral Avenue in Libby, MT 59923. You may also call 1-406-293-6194 and request that a copy be sent to you. Call:
Wendy Thomi at (406)457-5037
or toll free: 1-866-457-2690, extention 5037
-From the Tobacco Valley News Newspaper, Eureka, Montana
Date: 7/12/2001
By Steve Newman
Of the Tobacco Valley News
LIBBY - Designation of Libby as a federal Superfund site may help clean the city's environment but dirty its reputation at the same time, a selected panel suggested to U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg- (R-Montana) last week.
The freshman congressman conducted a panel discussion to hear how local residents view such a move by the Environmental Protection Agency. "We've come to listen, to learn, to see if we can find solutions for your challenges," Rehberg said at the outset.
While Superfund designation received limited support, one panelist, Lincoln County medical officer Dr. Brad Black, expressly backed it.
"The soundest mechanism for a clean bill of health - both real and perceived - is under Superfund designation," he told Rehberg and Illinois Representative Jerry Weller, who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee and has seen Superfund cleanups in his own Chicago district. Black's fellow panelists either disagreed or expressed reservations.
Libby Mayor Tony Berget asked for further analysis, suggesting that Libby may not survive the stigma of being a Superfund site.
"I don't want people to think you need a mask to walk down the streets of Libby," he said.
Already the economy of Libby "with no doubt is not in good shape," said Economic Development Director Bob Tunis. That's because, unlike Eureka, Montana, investors see Libby as an uncertainty, which they don't like.
"Until we have a clean bill of health, we won't see investment," Tunis said. "We want the clean-up done as quickly and efficiently as possible so we can go on to bigger and better things," he added.
But Superfund designation may not be the best means, because of its possible delay, Tunis said. Instead, he asked Rehberg if a direct allocation through Congress without the Superfund label were possible.
"That would be the best for the community," Tunis said.
School Superintendent Kirby Maki said students need a safe, positive environment both inside and outside the city's schools. He called for a comprehensive, long-term positive action plan, citing a "sense of urgency."
Although recongnizing that "teamwork is crucial," Maki didn't specifically name the EPA as a player in the game plan.
"The team approach requires pooling diverse information, leading to healthy debate and ultimately the best decisions," he said.
The clearest opposition to Superfund designation came from Realtors, who fear the stigma could do further harm to an already weak housing market.
Historically, Superfund designation brings a drop in real estate prices, realtor Mike Munro said. That in turn brings a decline to both city and county coffers and harms infrastructure, he said.
Rather than designating all of Libby as a cleanup site, Munro recommended the EPA clean up those specific sites associated with W. R. Grace's vermiculite mine and processing.
"I feel a majority of people wouldn't have a problem with Superfund designation at the mine site, but we do have a problem with Libby being designated," Munro said.
But Libby already is a Superfund site, state EPA director John Wardell said.
"There's some misconception," Wardell said. "Libby is already a Superfund site because it meets the definition of federal and state Superfund law. It's an area where hazardous material has been released."
Using emergency funds, the EPA has been cleaning up specific sites since 1999. The proper question now is whether Libby will be added to the agency's national priority list, Wardell said. Over 10,000 Superfund sites exists nationally. Montana alone has over 400, but only a dozen appear on the priority list for long-term remedial funding.
According to Wardell, Libby would see little delay in a transition from emergency to remedial funding.
The EPA's greatest concern in Libby is now the possibility of a source of asbestos contamination other than W. R. Grace's mine, Wardell said. Too many people who never worked at the mine have symptoms of asbestosis or related illnesses, he said. [Footnote: See this update on the health statistics- - web site editor]. "That is unique to this community," Wardell said. "We've not seen this elsewhere in the world."
[Footnote: You've just read what Libby's business community thinks of Superfund designation. Now read what the average Libby resident thinks.
Here is an older related story on possible Superfund designation for Libby. - - web site editor]
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 8/15/2001
By David F. Latham
Editor of The Montanian
Residents of Libby made it clear to Gov. Judy Martz (R-Montana) last week that they do not trust W. R. Grace & Co. to clean up leftover pockets of asbestos contamination, and they want the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to do the job.
Martz came to Libby Aug. 8, 2001 to get her first look as governor at the clean-up of asbestos pollution and the human suffering caused by decades of mining that ended in 1990.
This was Martz's fourth trip to Libby but it was the first time she came expressly to learn about Libby's asbestos problem. Her first three visits were parts of statewide political tours.
Martz made it known at a town meeting that she is not ready to throw her support behind Libby yet, but she is willing to learn more about the town's asbestos debacle. Martz told a reporter from Helena that she is undecided about her role in the matter and she still wants scientific data and complete facts before she makes any decision about whether Libby and the defunct W. R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine should be added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List of the most dangerous environmental hazards.
During a mid-morning tour of the former export plant near downtown, Martz heard from a Libby couple who ran a business on land at the export plant owned by Grace. Mel and Judy Burnett told Martz they had been treated badly by the company during cleanup operations that cost them their timber business.
"I'm saying that Grace is rotten. I'm sorry," said Judy Burnett, who along with her husband owns and operates Millwork West. "They have just fought," she said. "What are we going to do if they do this to everybody in Libby?"
While touring the export plant, the screening plant (location of the former Raintree Nursery) and the cleanup of a layer of mine tailings from the high school track, Martz got a briefing from Paul Peronard, the EPA's on-site coordinator in Libby. Peronard's team has been working in Libby since November, 1999, when press reports of widespread death and sickness brought Libby to EPA's attention. He told the governor that by the end of this year, the EPA will have completed work on nine substantial cleanup projects.
Martz, who has been critical of the slow pace of some Superfund projects - - including the one in her hometown of Butte, MT - - said she was surprised by the speed of operations in Libby. She was optimistic when Peronard told her he believed contamination within the town could be removed within three years. But, Peronard said. Superfund cleanup at the former mine site would be a much more long-term project.
Martz said she wants the state to have a bigger stake in what happens in Libby. She called for the EPA to engage more with her administration and urged Libby residents not to judge her before she takes action.
"When we come forward and try to help, we have not been received that well," she said.
Libby residents had a wide range of emotions, from tears to laughter, and many ideas to share with the governor at a town meeting held at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1548 community hall. That meeting attracted at least 265 people, including area residents, local and state government officials, several members of the statewide press, recording crews for several TV stations, and a Texas-based video production company.
Martz early-on deflected possible criticism and many residents' perception that she doesn't care about what happens in Libby.
"Don't assume that you know me or know what I'm thinking," Martz said in her introductory statement. "I came here to listen to you honestly, to listen to you with the knowledge I have in my head and the feeling that I have in my heart.....We want to talk about not only the problems, but the solutions and I want to hear from you on those things, go God bless you for taking the time. This will not be our last trip here and I will weigh heavily on the things I hear today," Martz said.
The Libby community - - which has experienced at least 88 deaths and hundreds of asbestos-related illnesses linked to the vermiculite mine that closed in 1990 - - is struggling with how best to clean up the remaining pockets of asbestos-contaminiated vermiculite, now to provide long-term health care for the people who might eventually become sick, and how to restore its tarnished and misleading intermational image as a town still blanketed with asbestos dust.
The EPA is preparing a proposal that would create two separate Superfund sites - - one for the town and one for the mine site, which was reacquried by Grace last year.
Martz is a key figure in the long-term cleanup because she has near-veto power over any EPA proposal to put Libby and surrounding mine sites on its Superfund National Priorities List (NPL). The state of Montana would be expected to pay 10 percent of the costs if Libby is included on the NPL. She said she wants to give Grace a chance to prove itself and she will hold them responsible for paying the clean-up costs.
The overwhelming majority of people who spoke at the meeting made it clear to Martz that they do not trust Grace to honor any commitment it might make to her, and they would prefer cleanup under the EPA's Superfund NPL programs.
Gayla Benefield presented to Martz an internal document from W. R. Grace & Co. that instructed company executives how to stonewall and delay investigations into the company's culpability in the asbestos issue.
Several people told Martz that Grace has already botched its first cleanup effort at the railroad export plant near the Libby baseball fields where vermiculite was prepared for shipping. The EPA is making the company redo its work, saying the area is still contaminated.
Les Skramstad, an asbestos victim from Libby, presented to Governor Martz a quart-size jar of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite that he said he scooped up at the export plant after Grace had supposedly cleaned up the area.
"I went to the export plant to see if they [W. R. Grace] really did a cleanup job....I took that jar and my wife's little garden shovel. I didn't do any excavating, all I did was look under a piece of plywood. I could have gotten a five-gallon bucket but I thought this would do. I feel that they [W. R. Grace] have done a terrible job of cleaning up," Skramstad said.
Martz kept the jar along with an extensive collection of letters and documents she gathered from persons who spoke. She also took notes throughout the meeting.
Residents told Martz that Grace knew as early as 1956 of the dangers to which it routinely exposed its workers and Libby residents, but did nothing to protect them from the deadly tremolite asbestos (external link) that permeated its vermiculite products.
Asbestos victim Eva Thompson told the governor "it's too late" for Libby's older generations.
"But what about the little ones who haven't been exposed yet?" asked Thompson. "Don't they deserve more than a sloppy cleanup?"
Libby resident Neil Bauer, who recently learned he has scarring of the lungs from asbestos exposure, likened putting Grace in charge of Libby cleanup operations to hiring a weasel or a marten to watch over a chicken farm.
"We cannot minimize what has happened here in Libby," said Bauer.
Jan Meadows of Libby told Martz about her 21-year old son who was recently diagnosed with lung abnormalities. Meadows urged the governor and other state officials to remember all of Libby's victims when they decide the fate of this town.
"We need more than one hour of counseling to get over this," Meadows said.
Martz choked up when, in her closing comments, she said there's no way she could think about Libby without taking the human toll into account and that financial factors are not her primary concern. [But] Martz has raised concerns over the state's potential liability for 10 percent of a Superfund cleanup tab.
"You think it doesn't hurt me when I see that your kids have this?" she asked, her voice breaking.
Tony Disney of Libby wondered about the value of human life.
"I hear all this talk about property values and businesses suffering, but what is the value of even one human life?" Disney asked.
During the meeting, Martz bristled at criticism over her meeting this spring with top officials from W. R. Grace & Co. Martz said she has met one and only one time with Grace, and that was at the request of four members of the Community Advisory Group (Gayla Benefield, Les and Norita Skramstad, and Montana Rep. Eileen Carney, D-Libby) who met with her in Helena and asked her to ask Grace to pay the health-care and cleanup costs.
Most of the people who spoke asked Martz to recommend Libby for the National Priorities List. Only one person, Montana State Senator Bill Crismore (R-Libby), said Grace and not EPA should pay for the cleanup.
[Photo caption: Martz sidesteps "support" issue".
Carrie Dedrick of Libby, left, greets Gov. Judy Martz at the town meeting Aug. 8 in Libby by pinning a blue ribbon on her lapel. The ribbons are intended to show support for Libby's asbestos victims, but Martz said in her introductory statement that even though she was wearing the ribbon, it didn't mean she necessarily supports the victims. Martz said words to the effect of, "It (her wearing the ribbon) doesn't mean anything one way or the other."
Behind Martz is Mike Foster, commissioner of the Montana Department of Labor, and Tom Laceky of The Associated Press.]
Following are excerpts of comments made at the meeting:
Sandy Wagner: "...EPA has become profoundly aware of the impact of this situation upon the health and welfare of the community's citizens. ...To date it appears that the state has not chosen to participate [in understanding and correcting the asbestos problem] even though the door of opportunity has been open to them since the beginning. Hopefully, after your visit here today, you will insist that the state agencies become active, educated participants in the solutions we so desperately need."
Eva Thompson: "Gov. Martz, this morning you had the opportunity to tour the cleanup sites, both EPA's and Grace's. I hope you noticed that the vermiculite is still on the ground at the expanding plant and at the ball field. That was Grace's cleanup site. ...It was a sloppy cleanup yet Grace says it is now cleaned up and safe. ..."
Alice Priest: "W. R. Grace has totally ruined our lives. ...We gave them a chance but they never came to us and told us we might die. ...I'm for the Superfund and EPA."
Helen Bundrock: "W. R. Grace is responsible for the tragedy that has become Libby. Grace has shown consistently that not only can they not be trusted, but their motivations are strictly related to their bottom line, which is greed. ...W. R. Grace has already demonstrated with their attempts at cleaning up the old mine site....that they do not perform in a quality manner. ...The bottom line should be about the health and safety of the community."
Neil Bauer: "I am a victim of asbestosis, along with my twin brother, and neither of us have ever worked up at the mine. ...I had a prime chicken farm and I wanted somebody to watch the chicken farm, would I hire a weasel or a marten, or some person to protect those chickens? Well some people would probably hire a weasel or a marten, and I compare that to W. R. Grace doing the cleanup here. Would I hire W. R. Grace to do the cleanup? Or Paul Peronard and EPA? There's no question that I would hire EPA. ...I've seen hard evidence - - letters from W. R. Grace, letters from doctors - - where they knew this [asbestos exposure] was going on. They [W. R. Grace] killed people in Libby. ... We cannot minimize what has happened here in Libby. ...The only way we can get done what we have to have done is to have the Superfund come in and clean it up, and get out of here...".
George Keck: "What has been allowed to happen in Libby is a major political embarrassment to government at all levels. You [Gov. Martz] stand at the threshold of an excellent opportunity to excel as a governor of the people, for the people and by the people. You can do this by simply acknowledging what happened in Libby was not on your watch, by championing continued successful EPA Superfund corrections and cleanup activities in Libby, and endorsing the addition of Libby to the EPA's National Priorities List, ensuring a proven, proper and funded means to achieve certified cleanup. Following these steps...will not only help to eliminate our ill-gained legacy, but give way for Libby to reestablish their future."
Harold Gilden: "I worked as a subcontractor at W. R. Grace....there was never any indication that there was a [asbestos] hazard. ...I believe that we should not allow W. R. Grace to clean this up. I believe we should let the EPA do it. If we let W. R. Grace clean it up, what happens if they go into bankrupcy? Can we negotiate a big enough bond ahead of time out of them to protect ourselves?....I doubt it. I fear having W. R. Grace clean it up."
Bob Dedrick: "I'm an asbestos victim and ...Even before the EPA was here....we had meetings...and we hashed over what we could do for ourselves. ...number one was cleanup because we didn't want anyone else to get exposed. ...So far, we've made great strides in the cleanup and the [medical] screening because of the dedication and determination of the local EPA people. Paul Peronard and his crew have done a wonderful job. They have been relentless in their quest to help us solve our problem and I want to thank them again publicly."
Bob Wilkins: "I was employed by W. R. Grace & Co. for 25 years. ...I was never told that we were working in an unsafe condition, ever. I was told it [the asbestos dust] was just nuisance dust. ...I have no knowledge of the EPA here now, so I'm not going to blow their horn in any way at all. But I will say this...these people working for EPA here...are hanging their ass out a mile for this community and I hope and pray that someday this community will realize what these people are trying to do for them here."
Les Skramstad: "What worries me is this cleanup business. ...They [W. R. Grace] had a chance, they had several chances - - actually they've had chances for the last 40 years - - Grace has chances since they took over [the mine in 1963 from Zonolite Co.] and they pulled out of here 10 years ago and left us holding the bag. ...The cleanup really worries me because, in that little jar I handed you [Gov. Martz], in June....I went to the export plant to see if they [W. R. Grace] really did a cleanup job....I took that jar and my wife's little garden shovel. I didn't do any excavating, all I did was look under a piece of plywood. I could have gotten a five-gallon bucket [of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite], but I thought this [a one-quart jar] would do. I feel that they [W. R. Grace] have done a terrible job of cleaning up. I've been called a trouble maker for what I've done here, but if that's what it takes to get the city cleaned up, I'll be glad to be a trouble maker. ...If [Grace] is going to clean it up, they've already told us they're broke. They've already applied for bankruptcy....We have documentation as long as this building that they're guilty [of hiding the dangers of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite]..."
[Local W. R. Grace & Co. representative Alan Stringer accuses Les Skramstad of "spinning tales" - - external link]
Eulogy to Les Skramstad.
Ron Anderson: "It is absolutely necessary that all sources of asbestos contamination be cleaned up quickly and completely and that the results be well-publicized. It is imperative that the community be assured the cleanup efforts are successful and that the air we breathe, the soil we walk on and the houses we live in no longer pose a hazard to ourselves, our families, our visitors, or to the future citizens of Libby. ...Property values will stay low until all the contamination is removed. The task before us is enormous, both in scope and expense. The cleanup we seek must address removal, disposal and monitoring during and after. Financing for the complete project must be ironclad. Time frame must be expedient and the result must be successful. All are critical to Libby's emergence as a viable community. Whether it be NPL listing or responsible party funding, the mechanism must adequately address all the cleanup and the recovery requirements we seek. I am concerned that the decision of the state to endorse or not endorse NPL listing may rely heavily on monetary issues. What level of lives lost and personal health destroyed is required for Montana to invest in the health and well-being of Lincoln County residents? Bankruptcy filing by W. R. Grace would seem to have shackled their ability to financially address the short- and long-term commitment necessary for health and cleanup requirements in Libby."
Don Wilkins: "I don't necessarily support making Libby-proper a Superfund site under the NPL listing. I don't have a problem with the mine site but I think dumping Libby into the Superfund, we're going to create a money hole that's never going to end and these people are going to be - - especially the businesses - - are going to be stranded getting cleanup that may take a long time. I'd like to see the type of cleanup we're doing now [EPA emergency response cleanup] [continue]."
Rev. Bob Foote: "[Gov. Martz], please do what you can to bring to bear the resources to get this town cleaned up once and for all. I would understand that to be declaring - - not only the mine but also the town of Libby - - a Superfund site."
Clinton Maynard: "I won't use a lot of time trying to explain the result of unregulated industry, but two words will do. This is a horrible disaster. ...W. R. Grace is responsible. Governments failed to protect us and allowed this to happen (external link).
"Finally, we the people are responsible in that we vote or don't vote (external link) and end up with elected people who hamstring the protection that we need and deserve, elected people who care more about money than people.
"It seems that the biggest obstacle that we face, next to survival, is funding. 'Who is going to ?' seems to be the question. Who's going to compensate this community? It seems that the taxpayer will have to foot the bill as our government allows industry to slink out the back door.
"We need funding for research that might help us to live through this. We need funding for full-coverage medical, as we need it. Coverage with travel benefits. We need funding to clean up our environment so that our health is not further compromised and that no others are needlessly exposed. The dying must stop. Funding to subsidize the local businesses, who suffer as well. Funding to revitalize our economy with good clean industry.
"We paid our part of this funding with loss of life and suffering. Libby Montana must be compensated. It's only right. Gov. Martz, it's time for the state of Montana to acknowledge responsibility. Acknowledge that what we face is Libby Montana is real, and it's real ugly. It's time to acknowledge that we Montanans have a disaster to deal with and declared as such so that the funding will come.
"Governor, declare this a disaster."
State Sen. Bill Crismore (R-Libby): "I have never said at any time in any talk that I've ever been...[newspaper transcript jumbled here- - web site editor]...anybody, the responsible party to pay for this cleanup is W. R. Grace. They need to come forward with funding, they need to take care of the people. I know we talked about Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I don't know the legalities of how much they can do or how much the court will allow them to do. But they still need to be brought to the table. I know people say well don't bring them to the table, you can't trust them. But they still need to be brought to the table to be held responsible for helping to contain and clean it up. Now whether they actually physically do the work or they pay for it [is another matter]"
Betty Bauer: "This community needs a lot of help. ...We are very very grateful for the EPA and for the job that they did....
"We have all kinds of documents that [W. R. Grace] knew about this problem, that they've been for a long time, they knew this [asbestos problem] was going to come, that people were going to find out about this and that the hue and cry was going to be raised. They had put money aside for litigation and now they're backing out by declaring bankrupcty, so you can see that there is no trust level for this company.
"We cannot in any way give [Grace] the cleanup. We have to have a Superfund site for Libby..."
George Bauer (Libby City Council member): "EPA, in all the dealings that the city of Libby has had to do with them, have done a superb job. Paul Peronard, Duc [Nguyen], Wendy [Thomi], the whole staff, have just been excellent. It's been enjoyable working with them. We still have a lot to do here in Libby, Montana. We hear about the declared Superfund site out towards Eureka at the mine site and not Libby. Somebody's going to have to pay to clean these homes. The only way we're ever going to be able to do that is as a Superfund site".
Gayla Benefield: "I have here a memo marked 'personal and confidential' from W. R. Grace date Nov. 26, 1980. Within that document the heads of Grace discuss the options to deal with the NIOSH [National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health] and EPA reports that at that time were forthcoming. [Benefield reads from the W. R. Grace document]:
'The first option A is to obstruct and block, possibly even contesting in courts.'
History has repeated itself. Our region EPA team has been forced to defend its integrity and policies in the courts during the last 20 months. The second option in the [W. R. Grace] document states:
'Be slow, review things extensively, and contribute to delay. It is possible that the new [Reagan] administration's policies will make NIOSH more selective in how scarce staff resources are allocated after Jan. 20, 1981.'
Again, history is repeating itself. That was the year that Ronald Reagan came into office and appointed J. Peter Grace as the head of the commission to cut EPA spending. All of the reports and files about Libby remained on the shelves until December, 1999. The situation nearly reoccurred once [George W.] Bush took office. Immediately pressure was put on the EPA to cut manpower and spending. Fortunately our Region 8 EPA team was prepared for it this time.
The last order [in the W. R. Grace memo] I would like to bring to your attention [Gov. Martz] is G:
'Attempt to apply influence via congressmen, senators, lobbyists and others, to get the NIOSH report turned off.'
[Footnote: The asbestos industry's lobbying of legislators has continued to this day. See this related article on the actions of one of Montana's U.S. senators.- - web site editor]
[Benefield continues] "This is a corporation whose philosophy was based on putting profit over human lives. This is a company that we welcomed into our state and community in 1963 thinking that they were our friend. This is a corporation that has devastated our community. This is the corporation that you [Gov. Martz] may feel deserves another chance?
"....Normal proceedure would be for the responsible party to clean up the area with the state agencies overseeing it. [W. R. Grace] is the same company that knew in 1969 that 92 percent of their employees would develop asbestos-related disease within 21 years of going to work at the plant but continued to sidestep the issue and put profit over human lives.
"What did they do when it became obvious that they couldn't hide behind smoke and mirrors any longer? They chose to hide behind the comfort of bankruptcy."
[Footnote: You've just read how the average Libby citizen feels about Superfund designation. Now read how Libby's business community feels about the designation.-- web site editor]
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 8/29/2001
By David F. Latham
Editor of The Montanian
About 30 percent of the people tested last year in Libby for asbestos-related disease have possible lung abnormalities as seen by at least one doctor, according to final rest results released Aug. 23, 2001 in Libby. This percentage closely matches preliminary estimates that were released in February, 2001.
The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) tested 6,149 former and current Libby residents between July 5 and Nov. 2, 2000 and released the results at a regular meeting of the Community Advisory Group (CAG). Twenty-one volunteer CAG members attended, as did about 75 spectators.
The testing program was held in response to reports beginning in November, 1999 of at least 88 deaths and hundreds of illnesses linked to asbestos exposure from the former W. R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine near Libby. The mine closed in 1990.
The asbestos medical tests included a personal interview with each participant, a three-view chest X-ray, and a lung-function test.
Local, state and federal health officials officials were alarmed last February when a preliminary report showed that 30 percent of 1,078 people tested had scarring of the pleura (lung lining) that was seen by at least one of three B-readers, that is, radiological specialists in reading chest X-rays for lung abnormalities.
The final report released last week matched the preliminary results, said Dr. Jeffrey Lybarger, M. D., director of the ATSDR's Division of Health Studies.
In the overall test group, 1,677 had scarring that was visible on X-rays and detected by at least one of three specialists.
Eighteen percent, or 994 people, had scarring seen by at least two of three B-readers. That percentage was also consistent with the preliminary findings.
Dr. Lybarger said the risk of lung abnormalities increased with age and length of residence in the Libby area.
The final results were compiled from the test group of 5,590 adults. The results excluded 559 children under age 18 - - or 9 percent of the 6,149 total - - who did not receive chest X-rays.
Community Advisory Group member Clinton Maynard criticized ATSDR for not including breathing Libby air as a specific exposure route, as he said he had asked them to do. Mr. Maynard said a downtown Libby air sample taken in 1975 by W. R. Grace showed as many as 25 million asbestos fibers could have been inhalded by everyone in Libby during a 24-hour period.
"I worked at Grace during the construction of the wet mill and my dad brought the asbestos home on his cloths," Mr. Maynard said. "I consider those secondary exposures in comparison to breathing Libby ambient air historically."
Dr. Lybarger said ambient air exposure did occur but there was no way of working it into the study. The final results show that 48 percent, or 159 of 328 former Grace employees had lung abnormalities, Dr. Lybarger said.
Most participants in last year's study reported multiple routes of exposure, such as occupational, household and recreational contact. Twenty-four percent of the participants who reported six or more routes of exposure had lung abnormalites as seen by two specialists.
Five percent, or six of 122 persons who reported no apparent exposure to asbestos fibers, had lung abnormalities as seen by two specialists.
The risk of men having lung problems was five times greater than the risk for women, Dr. Lybarger said, because men were more likely to engage in activities that would expose them to vermiculite.
The lung-function test results were interpreted by an on-site pulmonologist from the National Jewish Medical Center. Moderate to severe restriction in breathing capacity was found in 5.7 percent of former Grace workers. Overall, 2.2 percent of men and 1.6 percent of women had moderate to severe breathing restrictions.
No children under 18 showed breathing-restriction problems.
Persons who now smoke had the strongest risk factor for restrictive lung changes. Other factors that could contribute to restricted breathing included obesity, exposure to asbestos elsewhere than at W. R. Grace, and past chest surgery.
Montana Gov. Judy Martz issued a statement late Aug. 23 about the test results and said they are "upsetting."
"The final health test results for Libby are in and, while consistent with the preliminary data, remain greately upsetting and confirm the seriousness of this issue," Mrs. Martz said. "These numbers are a profound reminder of the human health tribulations that many past and present residents face."
Martz indicated that she will come to Libby on Sept. 7, 2001 in conjuction with a visit by Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman to further study the situation.
"I look forward to Christie Todd Whitman's visit next month so we can address these issues," Mrs. Martz said. "We will look at the full detailed report and respond accordingly."
I thank the people of Libby for working with me as we move together toward a positive solution. We will continue to work hard to obtain the assistance Libby needs," Mrs. Martz said.
St. John's Lutheran Hospital in Libby plans to provide follow-up diagnostic evaluations for persons with potential exposure and for those with identified lung abnormalities. Psychological and social services, education and outreach for persons affected by asbestos disease will be provided by the hospital under a one-year contract with the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
ATSDR is currently conducting a second round of asbestos [medical screening] tests in Libby and will continue for several more weeks. Anyone interested in being screened can call 1-800-439-8308.
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 10/17/2001
Montana Governor Judy Martz (R-Montana) on Oct. 11 flatly rejected a request by Lincoln County commissioners to put Libby's potential Superfund designation on a fast track, saying she still has unanswered questions about federal cleanup plans for the town.
In a meeting at the Capitol between Mrs. Martz, county commissions and their lawyers, the governor refused to use Montana's one "silver bullet" to put Libby and the vermiculite mine site on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List for guaranteed long-term cleanup.
Mrs. Martz flatly rejected the request to use the option for Libby, saying that recent terrorist attacks on the United States have made her wary that an even more dangerous situation could arise in Montana and require the use of the state's one silver bullet option. Martz said the EPA is continuing cleanup efforts in Libby now and the Superfund decision will follow a planned timeline. She said she expects to make a decision on Libby's Superfund fate by February, 2002.
"I won't do the silver bullet," Martz said. "That's not my option, so we need to go through this process," she said.
Lincoln County Commissioner John Konzen of Troy urged the governor to use Montana's silver bullet for Libby, saying there is no question that Libby needs to be a national priorities project. Mr. Konzen, a Democrat, reminded the governor that she dismissed the silver bullet option before the Sept. 11 attacks and he hoped she would reconsider.
"This is black and white," said Konzen. "We need to fire the silver bullet."
In a briefly heated exchange with the Republican governor, Konzen said he didn't understand why Martz would stall her decision over financial issues. Martz has said she wants to know how much a Superfund cleanup in Libby will cost the state before she signs on.
"Is cost a factor when human lives are involved?" Mr. Konzen asked.
Martz replied: "As governor, it has to be...It is not the cost that drives me, but I do need to know that as leader of the state. That's good stewardship."
The EPA is putting together a proposal that would include Libby and its now defunct vermiculite mine on the National Priorities List. The federal agency has been working in Libby since November 1999 when several newspapers published reports of sickness and death in Libby linked to asbestos contamination from the former vermiculite mine owned by W. R. Grace & Co. The mine shut down in 1990 and has been linked to at least 88 deaths from asbestos exposure. Hundreds more in Libby have been exposed to asbestos, according to two extensive federal health studies.
If W. R. Grace & Co. does not pay for EPA cleanup in Libby, the state is liable for 10 percent of the overall project costs. Federal officials have said that means the state likely would have to pay between $5 million and $10 million.
Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath issued an opinion in August that said W. R. Grace & Co. cannot contribute to the cost of cleanup in Libby because the -company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last spring and would be required to pay its debtors first.
Gov. Martz has a key role in the EPA's decision to place Libby on the National Priorities List of Superfund sites. The federal agency is required to weigh local input heavily and has only once in five years overridden a governor's decision to keep a site off the list.
Mrs. Martz said she still has not made up her mind on whether Libby should be a Superfund site. But she said will have an answer when the EPA asks.
"I'm ready to move when the time frame comes," she said.
The silver bullet option was recently discovered by Clinton Maynard of Libby, a member of the Community Advisory Group (CAG) that meets regularly to discuss Libby's asbestos situation. The silver bullet was written into the original Superfund law in 1980 and it allows the governor of each state to choose one - and only one - polluted site in their state to designate for the National Priorites List, bypassing the lengthy public comment period and hastening a Superfund designation by many months or even years.
In researching Superfund law, Mr. Maynard discovered that Montana's one silver bullet option had never been used.
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 12/26/2001
By David F. Latham
Editor of The Montanian
Montana Gov. Judy Martz announced Dec. 20 to Libby residents that she will use the so-called 'silver bullet' option to place Libby on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List of Superfund cleanup sites.
Martz (R-Montana) suprised local residents with her decision because she had for months denied repeated requests from city, county, business and civic leaders to use the fast-track approach to save time and bureaucratic red tape in adding Libby to the Superfund list. Martz had said she wanted to reserve Montana's silver bullet option because the threat of terrorist attacks could cause an environmental catastrophe greater than the one in Libby.
"In reaching this decision, I have come to believe that the known risks of today outweight the unknown risks of tomorrow," Mrs. Martz said at a hastily called public meeting at Libby City Hall. "I am committed to the community of Libby. We have come a long way together, and we have a long way yet to go. But, together, we will accomplish what is best for the people of Libby."
Decades of vermiculite mining and processing in and near Libby contaminated the area with deadly tremolite asbestos, a naturally occurring by-product of vermiculite mining. The pollution has left at least 88 people dead and hundreds more sickened with incurable, asbestos-related diseases.
The vermiculite mine near Libby was owned and operated by W. R. Grace & Co. from 1963 to 1994. The mine shut down in 1990. Grace repurchased a controlling interest in the mine in 1999.
The governor had suggested in August that W. R. Grace be allowed to oversee the cleanup, so her announcement last week came as a happy surprise for area residents who have been working to have Libby added to the Superfund list.
Mrs. Martz said her decision to utilize the 'silver bullet' was influenced by her concerns over the potential for delay in the listing process.
"I wanted firm commitments from the EPA with regard to the cleanup in Libby," Mrs. Martz said. "I have taken a measured approach in order to gain the information needed to make the best decision for Libby."
The 1980 federal law that created Superfund allowed the governor of each state to choose one site in their respective state for immediate designation as a Superfund site without the normal public comment period.
Clinton Maynard of Libby, a member of the Community Advisory Group, discovered that relatively obscure clause in the law last summer. He also discovered that Montana was one of about seven states that had never used their silver bullet. Mr. Maynard initiated a letter-writing campaign to the governor and asked her to use the silver bullet for Libby.
The governor's office said the state will finalize the documentation needed for this designation by early January.
The next step will be for EPA to publish a notice in the Federal Register some time in January, followed by a 30-day comment period. Plans for cleanup could begin soon after that.
John Wardell, EPA's Montana head, said the Superfund listing process for Libby can now move into high gear. Wardell and other EPA officials have estimated that Mrs. Martz's decision could shorten the listing process by one year because it allows bypassing some steps.
With the silver bullet, opponents of the listing can't stop the process or tie it up in court. W. R. Grace has never given any indication that it would not fight the process.
Under the agreement between EPA and Gov. Martz, the cleanup of Libby will take no more than three years - - two years of actual cleanup and one year of sampling to ensure the town is safe again.
Meanwhile, the former vermiculite mine - - now controlled by W. R. Grace & Co. - - would likely remain permanently on the Superfund list because it would require ongoing oversight.
Official notice from the U.S. Evironmental Protection Agency, 3/27/2002
ASK EPA !! - - Questions and Answers about Asbestos and EPA's InvestigationQ: What was the outcome of the March 19th meeting with EPA Administrator Whitman to discuss making the formal determination that a Public Health Emergency exists in Libby which would enable EPA to remove vermiculite insulation from people's homes?
A: Ms. Whitman was supportive of the Region 8 Office's work and direction in Libby. However, there are many issues associated with both the determination and the removal of vermiculite insulation that require further deliberation.
EPA has never made a determination of a Public Health Emergency using its Superfund authority, therefore the decision whether to use this authority in Libby must be carefully considered. EPA is expected to reach a decision shortly.
For more information, call: Wendy Thomi at (406)457-5037 (or toll free at: 1-866-457-2690).
The preceeding was published in The Montanian newspaper (Libby, Montana) on March 27, 2002.
[Comment: The Bush EPA is concerned that if they declare a Public Health Emergency in Libby, they will open a Pandora's Box, because similar asbestos-contaminated vermiculite insulation is found in homes across the United States. Cleanup costs could become enormous if a National cleanup is necessary. Be prepared for a politically and fiscally expedient EPA decision, rather than a decision based on health concerns- - web site editor]
[Update - May 15, 2002: As expected, the Bush EPA did not declare a Public Health Emergency in Libby, although EPA agreed to clean up contamination in Libby homes. By chosing to not declare a Public Health Emergency, the agency avoided setting a precedent for the rest of the nation. As a result of this action, homes in other parts of the U.S. that have asbestos-contaminated vermiculite insulation will not be cleaned up under this agreement. For the forseeable future, these homeowners will have to live with their household contamination.- - web site editor]
10/18/2002 - Update on Public Health Emergency Status
12/29/2002 - Bush Administration blocked Public Health Emergency Status for Libby
4/16/2003 - Latest news on Libby's attempts to be declared a Public Health Emergency
U.S. Senate report detailing the Bush EPA's eventual blockage of the Public Health Emergency for Libby.
6/24/2009 - A Public Health Emergency is finally declared for Libby. Obama EPA reverses Bush EPA's policy towards Libby.
-From The Missoulian Newspaper, Missoula, Montana
Date: 5/8/2002
By Ericka Schenck Smith
Missoulian State Bureau
HELENA - Since January, W. R. Grace and Co. has denied most applicants access to a medical program for people with asbestos-related diseases linked to the company's former vermiculite mine and mill in Libby, officials at the Center for Asbestos Related Diseases (CARD) clinic said Tuesday.
"Up to this point, pretty much everyone who had been assessed and diagnosed had been accepted," said Pat Cohan, a registered nurse and program director for the CARD clinic.
Of the 27 people who applied to the medical program in January and February, Cohan said, 17, or 63 percent, were denied. Before this year, she said, she could remember only one or two people whom Grace had rejected.
Grace began the program two years ago, promising medical coverage for asbestos-related diseases suffered by former mine workers, their families, and anyone else who had lived within 20 miles of the mine or mill for at least a full year before January, 2000. The company required participants to have a diagnosis of a disease that could be connected to asbestos from the mine.
Grace bought the Libby vermiculite mine in 1963 and operated it until 1990. Over the years, hundreds of people have become ill because of exposure to asbestos that contaminated the Libby vermiculite ore, and at least 200 have died.
Alan Stringer, a former mine operator who is now W. R. Grace and Co.'s representative in Libby, said the people who have been denied coverage under the Grace plan simply didn't meet the company's criteria.
"There were some applications that were turned in that were sent back to the people because they didn't meet the qualifications," Stringer said.
But Dr. Brad Black, who directs the CARD clinic, said he thinks Grace has changed the qualifications, and longtime mine workers who are obviously ill are being denied coverage.
"The evidence, and it's been stated by them, is that they're tightening up their program," Black said. To do so, he said, the company is relying on reports from special X-ray readers, who often disagree despite their advanced qualifications.
"They're just using images to sort people in and out," he said. "They've excluded workers who worked there in the dirtiest times for 10 or 15 years."
More than 1,000 patients who showed some sign of lung abnormalities on an X-ray have come to the CARD clinic for follow-up, and about 850 have been diagnosed with an asbestos-related illness, Black said. Some patients' history of exposure makes a diagnosis certain, even if only one of the X-ray readers could see a problem, he said. Because it can take decades for asbestos-related diseases to appear, a small shadow on an X-ray could be a sign of serious disease in someone who was exposed to asbestos fewer than 15 years ago, he added.
"Our concern is this: They're not getting a fair deal, and Grace is basically stonewalling," Black said. "X-rays can be interpreted by even experts with varied opinion, and they still have to have a correlation with the patient and their exposure."
Alan Stringer said that the company did not have evidence that the people who were denied had a disease that could be connected to the mine.
"The reports that were sent along with their application did not indicate that they had an asbestos-related condition," Stringer said.
Cohan said the clinic is working with patients to resubmit applications, along with more information requested by the company.
When the medical plan began in 2000, Grace officials said they would remain committed to the plan regardless of price. At the time, they expected between 200 and 400 people to enroll. Cohan said there are probably more than 500 people enrolled in Libby alone. She said she did not know how many others are enrolled nationwide.
Earlier story: Medical community gearing up for asbestos patients.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 5/29/2002
By Matthew Bunk
Western News reporter
Individuals diagnosed with diseases related to asbestos exposure will have to find alternate sources of funding to pay for certain medications no longer covered by the W. R. Grace and Co. medical program.
All three pharmacies in Libby discovered last week that many medications, including blood pressure meds and pain relievers, have been removed from a long list of previously-covered prescription medicines. Since Wednesday, the pharmacies have been required to take payment for the medications or turn people away.
"It's hard on the old folks and people on a tight budget," said Dave Zwang, a pharmacist at Center Drug in Libby. "We had a guy come in the other day looking for his blood-pressure medication, and we had to tell him it wasn't covered. He didn't buy it - he just didn't have the money to pay for it. So now he'll just go without it."
"I don't know what the hell the insurance company is doing."
Representatives from Health Network America (HNA), the medical program claims administrator, say the company only is rejecting medications that have no influence on an asbestos-related condition. Until HNA began an audit of the W. R. Grace medical program in February, all medications, not just for lung conditions, were available at no cost.
Also as a result of the audit, HNA announced last week that nearly 10 percent of the people accepted into the program could be cut off entirely.
The medical and prescription programs were to encompass only asbestos-related conditions, say HNA officials, but were being used generously to cover medications not mentioned in the program outline, which was published in April, 2000.
"It wasn't meant to cover every drug," said Dr. Jay Flynn, HNA vice president of medical affairs. "This change should not be a big suprise to many people."
But it did shock many individuals, including local pharmacists who said they received no prior indication that the coverage would be constrained. Those accepted into the program arrived last week at pharmacies only to find out that the trip was a waste of time, said Wendy Dodson, a pharmacist at Rosauers.
"People want to know why their medication isn't covered, and I don't know what to tell them," Dodson said. "We received no prior notification of any changes, and from what I understand, neither did the individuals. To me, that seems like a huge public relations blunder."
An updated formulary, or list of covered medications, will be sent out to pharmacies this week, said Dr. Stephen Kardos, president and founder of HNA.
Local pharmacies until then will keep a running list of medications no longer covered. As of Tuesday morning, payment has been rejected for 21 different medications, according to one pharmacist.
While, in fact, some of the medications being turned down may not have bearing on a lung conditions, Dodson says it's too late in the game to be changing the rules.
"There are some meds that they were paying for that we would just look at and shake our heads," she said. "But when someone is enrolled in the program, you don't just stop without any warning whatsoever.
"And it's not just people in Libby. There are a lot of people in other places that are affected by this, too."
Grace representative in Libby Alan Stringer admitted that much of the confusion could have been eliminated if W. R. Grace had strictly administered the program from the beginning.
"Hindsight is always 20/20," he said. "You set up a program and hope it runs the way you designed it. And when you find out that it's not running right, you do what you can to get it on track."
One way to look at the situation, Kardos said, is that the company will not retroactively charge people for past medications that have not been stricken from the formulary list. And on a "case-by-case basis," certain bloodpressure medications could be paid for if the patient contacts HNA, Kardos said.
"We can work out the details of that," he said. "There are sensitivities here ... just have them call HNA and we'll work it out with the pharmacies."
Flynn said blood pressure medication will be convered for those taking corticosteroids or medication to treat high blood sugar levels.
The only way to determine if blood pressure medication is necessary is to examine each patient individually, said Dr. Aubrey Miller, U. S. Region 8 Public Health Service coordinator.
"Blood pressure can be affected by a lung condition," he said. "I can't say that in a real widespread sense. That has to be determined on an individual basis.
"With respect to people no longer being covered by the program, I'm very concerned. This is something (W. R. Grace) promised to the community, and it now seems like they're taking it back."
Grace threatened to pull back its medical program if the Libby community continued to push environmental cleanup associated with asbestos contamination, said asbestos victim advocate Gayla Benefield.
It is interesting, she points out, that Grace's medical program shrunk on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - the same day that the U. S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Grace-affiliated companies to recover funds for environmental cleanup.
Related story on the insurance coverage controversy for Libby's asbestos victims.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 5/29/2002
"Dust to Dust", a documentary about the Libby asbestos problem by Texas filmmaker Michael Brown has been chosen to appear in three major film festivals this year and is available at the Libby library. The feature-length documentary was filmed on location in northwestern Montana over the past year and a half. The New York International Independent Film & Video Festival has made it an official selection for festivals in Los Angeles, New York, and Las Vegas.
[The award-winning video can be borrowed from the Lincoln County library. For those who live elsewhere, the Lincoln County Library can tell you where to purchase the video [call (406)293-2778]. - - web site editor]
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 8/21/2002
The federal government has completed its review of Libby death certificates and finds the number of asbestos-related respiratory deaths "significantly elevated".
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry analyzed death certificates to determine the impacts of widespread exposure to tremolite asbestos from the W. R. Grace and Company vermiculite mine and milling facility.
ATSDR, a public health agency of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, prepared the mortality review in cooperation with the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.
The latest report concluded, as did the agency's first report in December of 2000, that for the 20-year period examined, mortality in Libby resulting from respiratory disease was significantly elevated.
Both reports showed that when compared to Montana and U. S. mortality, there was a 20 percent to 40 percent increase in malignant and nonmalignant respiratory deaths in Libby from 1979 to 1998.
Specifically, asbestos mortality in Libby was 40 to 80 times higher than expected in Montana and the United States, and lung cancer mortality was approximately 20 percent to 30 percent higher than expected in Montana and the United States.
Mesothelioma mortality was elevated but because statistics on this extremely rare cancer are not routinely collected, it was difficult to quantify the increase. Other non-malignant, noninfectious respiratory deaths also were significantly elevated.
Most of the increase in respiratory mortality noted in the latest report likely can be associated with occupational exposures. Asbestos and mesothelioma mortality were found almost exclusively in former workers. Some of the lung cancer mortality occurred in former employees of the vermiculite facility.
The new report is a health consultation called "Mortality in Libby, Montana (1979-1998)" and is dated August 8, 2002. In preparing the report, ATSDR reviewed all death certificates for Libby residents who died between 1979 and 1998 and compared the number of deaths from asbestos-related causes to similar deaths across the Montana and the United States.
ATSDR representatives will be at a meeting in Libby on September 26, 2002 to discuss the report, plus findings of the medical testing and CT scans offered earlier to residents.
Meanwhile, the mortality review health consultation is available for public review at Lincoln County Library, 220 W. 6th Street, Libby, MT 59923, or at ATSDR's Libby office, 501 Mineral Avenue, Libby, MT 59923.
Persons who want more information about the mortality review, or who would like to receive a copy, should contact ATSDR epidemiologist Steve Dearwent, toll free, at 1-888-422-8737. Callers should refer to the "Libby, Montana site". ATSDR regional representative Dan Stausbaugh in Helena, Montana, also may be called for information at (406)457-5007.
[Comment: Read about the county's death rate from asbestos-related disease]
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 8/30/2002
A documentary in the making about Libby and its asbestos problem will be presented Oct. 2, 2002 in New York City at the 24th Independent Feature Project Market.
The film, "Libby, Montana," by Doug Hawes-Davis and Drury Gunn Carr of Missoula is being screened as a documentary work-in-progress at The Angelika.
The film depicts a small, unlikely group of citizens coming together to fight for their town, according to a news release from High Plains Films of Missoula.
"They find themselves at odds with local politicians, the state governor, senators, an international corporation, and even their friends and neighbors," said the publicity. "Some prominent town residents claim the issue has been blown out of proportion by a zealous few and by a young charismatic federal bureaucrat in charge of cleanup. Emotions fly and solutions are hard to find in this disturbing, yet strangely humorous true drama."
The filmmakers will be at the New York City screening to sell the project to broadcasters and film distributors.
The documentary is a "journey into the world of a hard-working, blue-collar community that exemplifies the American Dream gone horribly wrong," the two filmmakers said.
Libby, the asbestos problem and the ongoing cleanup has already been featured in a documentary, "Dust to Dust", released earlier this year by Texas filmmaker, Michael Brown.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 10/18/2002
By Roger Morris
Western News Publisher
An effort may be started to lobby Montana's congressional delegation to get Libby declared a public health emergency at the federal level.
The hope is federal funding for a community medical trust for asbestos victims would follow such a declaration.
Libby asbestos victims questioned Environmental Protection Agency officials Wednesday night on why the community was not declared a health emergency earlier this year.
The EPA had called the Wednesday special meeting following considerable discussion at the Thursday night Community Advisory Group (CAG) on the health emergency, the $2.75 million settlement between the EPA and W. R. Grace and logging in the Rainy Creek drainage.
Concerns about the first two issues are being driven by the need for a community health trust for asbestos victims. The logging proposal has people concerned about additional contamination by asbestos-laden vermiculite.
Paul Peronard, on-site coordinator for the EPA, said he recommended that Libby be declared a public health emergency along with his request to clean Zonolite insulation from home and commercial buildings.
Marianne Horinko, head of the Superfund program for the EPA, made the decision that the insulation could be removed without a public health emergency declaration, Peronard said.
"Ms. Horinko got input from all sorts of people and signed the order," he said. "What she was most concerned about was that we move forward on insulation removal."
Some of that input came from an unusual source, the Office of Management and Budget, which Peronard said he has never seen before on the Superfund sites he has worked.
Les Skramstad said he thought the medical needs of the community were presented clearly to Horinko during a meeting in Libby last spring.
Jim Christiansen, EPA on-site coordinator for the cleanup, said he doesn't believe Horinko was saying the medical needs didn't exist in Libby, just that the declaration wasn't needed to proceed with the insulation cleanup.
"We need to appeal this decision through our elected people who represent us," said Clinton Maynard, CAG board member.
Lincoln County commissioner Rita Windom expressed her concern for possible statewide impacts to workers compensation and Medicaid.
"We've been trying to impress on the state that unless we get some sort of medical trust, it's going to land hard on the state," Windom said. "We need to convince the governor and the Department of Public Health that we have an emergency."
Windom continued, "The state budget shortfall of $230 million isn't anything compared to what we will see with this."
At this time, it's unknown how much money would be needed to provide continuing health care for Libby's growing number of asbestosis victims. Local officials have thrown out a figure as high as $500 million. Governor Judy Martz secured a federal grant to study the issue through a special task force.
"I told the group years ago that the state is not going to have this amount of money," Skramstad said. "These people are sick and they're not going to go out in the woods and die. They are going to turn somewhere for help."
Skramstad said the community needs the declaration to establish a health plan.
"We need to get this declaration, there's no two ways about it," he said. "The state - - we might not have a Montana after this gets full blown."
Peronard said the decision was made in Washington D. C. "It's her (Horinko's) decision and not mine and you need to ask her," he said.
A public health emergency under Superfund has never been declared, Peronard said.
"There is no criteria in the law on how we declare or who determines it," he said. "There's not a whole lot there and it doesn't come up."
Peronard said, "The circumstances of how you go about it have never come up before. At least we haven't done it before."
The health care situation for asbestos victims in Libby is one of the weak points that has evolved during the past three years, Peronard said.
"As a citizen, what I don't like about health care up here (in Libby) is it's piece meal, he said. "It's not rational. It's as good as we do right now."
He listed the establishment of the Community Health Center, W. R. Grace's grant to the hospital and the establishment of the Center for Asbestos Related Disease (CARD), the establishment of screening programs and then W. R. Grace's strict criteria for qualifying for their free health care plan.
There are too many gaps and people with health care needs are falling into those openings, Peronard said.
County Attorney Bernie Cassidy said the focus has to be on the federal government and not the county or state.
"The two things I'm hearing is there is no criteria for declaring a public health emergency and we need to approach our delegation," Cassidy said. "I'm assuming that (Horinko's) decision not to declare is not final."
"The decision was that it wasn't needed to remove the insulation," Peronard said. "You have to realize the asbestos issue is far bigger than Libby and you never know what book of worms you will open."
Obama Administration disagrees with Bush Administration's treatment of Libby and declares a public health emergency for the community.
Official notice from the U.S. Evironmental Protection Agency, 11/13/2002
ASK EPA !! - - Questions and Answers about Asbestos and EPA's InvestigationQ: How much notice will I be given before [vermiculite] removal at my property begins and how long will I be out of my home?
A: Representatives from the EPA will contact the property owner to schedule a time to meet and discuss what removal activities will occur and options for relocation (if necessary). During the meeting, the resident and EPA representatives will discuss a start date that will allow sufficient time for the resident to plan ahead for the removal and possible relocation. Generally, a minimum of two weeks of notification will be given before activities begin. Scheduled activities such as family visits, holidays, etc. will be considered so that the relocation process poses as little inconvenience as possible. Based on previous removal activities, property owners can expect that removal activities will require from one to three weeks depending on the extent of the contamination.
For more information call: Wendy Thomi at 406-457-5037 or toll free at 1-866-457-2690 Extension 5037
-From Daily Inter Lake Newspaper, Kalispell, Montana
Date: 12/29/2002
Washington (AP) - - A warning from the Environmental Protection Agency, informing millions of Americans their homes might contain asbestos-contaminated insulation, has not been issued because of [Bush] White House intervention, a newspaper reports.
The EPA was expected to announce the warning in April, and declare a public health emergency concerning Zonolite insulation, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in its Sunday editions.
Zonolite came from ore in a former vermiculite mine owned by W. R. Grace and Company in Libby, Montana, where asbestos contamination is blamed for the deaths of 200 area residents and illness among hundreds more. The ore contained tremolite, an extremely dangerous asbestos fiber.
Zonolite was used in millions of homes, businesses and schools across America. Removing it could cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The newspaper estimates Missouri is likely to have Zonolite in 380,000 homes, with 60,000 in St. Louis. Illinois may have as many as 800,000 contaminated homes.
A public health emergency declaration would have authorized removal of the disease-causing insulation from homes in Libby and provided long-term medical care for people made sick.
The EPA late this year added the town of Libby to the nation's Superfund list for environmental cleanup, naming it the most significant hazardous site in Montana.
A declaration would have also triggered nationwide notification of property owners who might be exposed. Potentially contaminated homes could number between 15 million and 35 million, the paper said.
W. R. Grace and Company, which has said there was no proof that Zonolite insulation was dangerous, has settled hundreds of lawsuits claiming death or illness from Zonolite exposure. The Company has written EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman denying the product poses any risk.
Days before the EPA was to make the declaration in April, the plan was thwarted by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the paper said.
After the declaration was stopped, Superfund director Marianne Horinko ordered that asbestos be removed from contaminated homes in Libby.
Both OMB and the EPA acknowledge that the [Bush] White House agency was actively involved [in blocking the declaration], but neither agency would discuss how or why. Both agencies refused Freedom of Information Act requests for documents between the agencies.
Former EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus said the decision not to notify homeowners of possible contamination was wrong.
"Your first obligation is to tell the people living in these homes of the possible danger. They need the information so they can decide what actions are best for their family. What right does the government have to conceal these dangers? It just doesn't make sense," Ruckelshaus said.
Whitman, Horinko and top staff members were said to have been outraged at the intervention, the Post Dispatch said. [Comment: EPA Administrator Christine Whitman resigned her post in the Bush Administration some months after this report was blocked. Most news reports claim that she left the Administration in disgust - - web site editor]
The asbestos in Zonolite, like all asbestos products, is believed to be either a minimal health risk or no risk if it is not disturbed. Asbestos fibers must be airborne to be inhaled.
The EPA has said information for the public on potential Zonolite dangers is on its Web site.
The Web site warning is not enough, said U. S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington), who is sponsoring legislation to ban asbestos in the United States.
"We, the government, the EPA, and the administration have a responsibility to at least let people know the information so they can protect themselves if they go into those attics", Murray said.
A related story on declaring a Public Health Emergency
Link to EPA's decision-making process
Libby tries once again to convince Bush Administration.
U.S. Senate's detailed report on the Bush EPA's eventual blockage of the Public Health Emergency for Libby.
EPA Fact Sheet Number 9 (excerpt)Sampling and Cleanup in Libby Update (As of January, 2003)
Sampling Statistics
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•3454 properties were inspected for visible vermiculite
•EPA collected soil samples from 3029 properties (samples weren't required for every property)
•281 owners denied access to the samplers
•1067 structures have visible vermiculite outside but no visible vermiculite inside
•216 structures have visible vermiculite inside but no visible vermiculite outside
•320 structures have both indoor and outdoor vermiculite
•40 secondary structures (e.g. sheds, detached garages) have vermiculite
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•8 residential/commercial properties were completed prior to 2002
•17 residential/commercial properties were completed in 2002
•Average cost per cleanup over all properties including 2001: about $100,000
•Average cost per cleanup in 2002: about $150,000
•Average cost for last seven cleanups of 2002: about $50,000
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 6/6/2003
Leading Senate Democrats testified Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee against a proposal establishing a national trust for asbestos claims and ending litigation.
Montana Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) called the proposal a "sweetheart deal" for W.R. Grace & Co., which would deny people in Libby adequate compensation for exposure to deadly asbestos contaminated vermiculite while protecting the company from future lawsuits. Under the bill SB 1125, proposed by committee Chair Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a $108 billion fund would pay out for 25 years for victims of asbestos-related diseases. The top payment would be about $750,000 for someone with mesothelioma, the most lethal form of asbestos-related disease.
Insurance companies would pay in $45 billion to the trust with the remainder of the money coming from companies that have been sued. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the top Democrat on the committee, said he could not support the bill because it shifts the financial risk from defendants and insurers to victims.
And Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said for the legislation to be fair it must ensure adequate compensation to all types of asbestos victims. She singled out how the bill would exempt family members of former W.R. Grace miners and [other] residents of Libby exposed to deadly asbestos which contaminated the vermiculite mined nearby for nearly 60 years.
Baucus told the committee that the bill will leave the majority of Libby residents without due compensation from injuries. The three main reasons Baucus listed the bill as unfair were:
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•The bill’s medical criteria doesn’t take in account the unique
asbestos-related health problems in Libby;
•The bill only compensates former workers and not family members and other people with no occupational exposure;
•Outside compensation Medicaid, Medicare or other health care plans — received by Libby residents would be deducted from any trust-funded compensation they are owed.
Leahy expressed concerns with the bill protecting companies indefinitely but leaving asbestos victims uncompensated if the trust runs out of funds at any time in the next 50 years. "If we are going to limit the rights of asbestos victims, we have an obligation to prevent future victims by banning asbestos," Murray said, promoting her bill seeking to ban asbestos in the U.S.
Hatch (R-Utah) said time is critical on getting his asbestos litigation bill passed. He said the senate docket will be getting busy with other legislation.
This was said to be the final hearing on the proposed bill, called the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2003. "There remain a number of important issues on which we need to find common ground," Leahy said. "Working together we stand the best chance of success. Our guiding prisnciples should be fairness to the victims and certainty for the corporations involved, through a workable process that will function effectively over time and in the real world." "I hope that a healthy bi-partisan negotiation process will continue, so that good companies providing good-paying jobs are not wrongly forced into bankruptcy over mounting asbestos claims, and the true victims of asbestos receive just compensation for their injuries," Baucus said. "However ... I have serious concerns about how the chairman’s bill will impact my constituents in Libby, Montana."
2/28/2001Senator Baucus threatens filibuster if liability-limiting bill is revived.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 7/16/2003
Community Advisory Group (CAG) members were upset with a response from federal officials to a second request for public health assistance in Libby for people suffering from asbestos-related disease.
The latest request was sent to Tommy Thompson, secretary for the federal Health and Human Services department. However, the response letter came from Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
"We sent the letter to Tommy Thompson rather than the ATSDR because we know what we could get from ATSDR because we've been hearing it for three years," said Clinton Maynard, CAG member. "We've gone full circle."
Previously, CAG had sent a letter to Christie Whitman, then administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, which is cleaning up asbestos-contaminated vermiculite remaining from former W. R. Grace and Company mining and milling operations in the area.
Both letters [from the government] said there has never been a declared public health emergency under the Superfund law nor is there a mechanism for such a declaration or for providing health care.
"I'm a little amazed at the situation," Maynard said. "The federal government isn't going to do anything because they can't," he said. "The federal government came here, identified the problem, and said 'You folks are right but there isn't anything we can do to solve the problem.' "
Maynard asked Dan Strausbaugh, local representative to ATSDR, to provide historical and statutory reports on the portion of the federal Superfund law that relates to declaring a public health emergency.
"You're talking about a large volume of material," Strausbaugh replied.
Several CAG members questioned a sentence in Gerberding's letter which claimed that ATSDR had provided an "appropriate level of care." The federal agency, responding to the Libby crisis with the EPA, had established a health screening program that confirmed that in the past people had been exposed to dangerous levels of tremolite asbestos contaminating the vermiculite mine, milled and distributed in the area as both insulation and garden fill.
The ATSDR studies found that nearly 20 percent of the more than 7,000 people tested showed signs of asbestos-related disease.
"You would think that with all the statistics ATSDR came up with, we would have their clear support for a medical program," said George Bauer, CAG member and city councilman.
"Don't you think it's sad that we get unlimited money for studies but none for medical care?" said Eva Thompson.
Presently, W. R. Grace and Company provides a health care program for people diagnosed with asbestos-related disease. More than 800 people are taking advantage of the program, which has been accused of having stringent requirements. Many people fear W. R. Grace and Company will eliminate the program once their [Grace's] bankruptcy case has been settled. It's estimated that 1,100 people have been diagnosed with the disease.
Earlier story: Bush Administration blocks declaration of Public Health Emergency
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 4/16/2003
A declaration of a public health emergency isn't the answer to Libby's asbestos-related health care problems, federal [Bush Administration] officials are telling the community.
In a recent letter responding to an inquiry from the Community Advisory Group, EPA assistant administrator Marianne Horinko pointed out several ways in which the federal government has already made funds available for health care in Libby. She noted funding from the Department of Health and Human Services for upgrades at the local hospital, the Center for Asbestos Related Disease and the Lincoln County Community Health Center, along with a grant to the school district to develop a database of former students who may have been exposed to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite.
Horinko also pointed out the EPA has never declared a public health emergency in the 23 years the provision has been on the books as part of Superfund legislation and indicated that no such declaration will be made for Libby.
The Superfund law contains a provision for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to provide medical care and testing in cases of public health emergencies. A declaration of such an emergency was seen by some in the community as a way of ensuring federal health care funding for people exposed to the asbestos that contaminated vermiculite mined and processed at Libby for more than 60 years. Horinko's letter was read and discussed at last Thursday's CAG meeting. Even if the EPA were to declare a public health emergency, it would be ATSDR's responsibility to provide health care, EPA toxicologist Aubrey Miller said.
"ATSDR is saying even if we did it, we don't know what to do with it," Miller said. "There's not any money for it, and it's never been done before." With or without a declaration of a public health emergency, it would take congressional action to fund health care for Libby asbestos victims, Miller said. "It still is going to go back to Congress," Miller said. "It's going to take an act of Congress to fill the coffers."
ATSDR representative Dan Strausbaugh read a statement making it clear that his agency won't be declaring a public health emergency.
The screening program conducted by ATSDR in Libby is "consistent with ATSDR's statutory authorities," Strausbaugh said. ATSDR does not have the resources to provide health care services as described in Superfund legislation, and ATSDR is not authorized to provide health care services to communities, he said.
Public health hospitals, which provided free care and were envisioned as a means of delivering health care under declaration of a public health emergency, no longer exist. The facilities have been decommissioned since the mid-1980s, and there are currently, no public health hospitals operating in the United States, Strausbaugh said. Libby will continue to be one of the most important public health sites for ATSDR, Strausbaugh said. The agency is capable of conducting all necessary public health activities in Libby without declaring a public health emergency, he said. "At this time, neither DHHS nor ATSDR are planning to declare a public health emergency in Libby," Strausbaugh continued. "The public health agencies will continue to work with EPA, other federal and state agencies, and the community to prevent exposure to asbestos and protect the health of current and future Libby residents."
[Comment: 6/24/2009 - The Obama EPA reverses the Bush EPA's policy towards Libby and declares a Public Health Emergency for the town- - web site editor.]
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 11/03/2004
By Roger Morris, Western News Publisher
W. R. Grace and Company is the target of criminal investigation by a federal grand jury based in Missoula, according to a press release from the Columbia, Md., based corporation.
The press release from W. R. Grace says it received a letter on Friday, Oct. 29, 2004, informing the company that it has been "named as a target of a federal grand jury investigation involving possible obstruction of federal agency proceedings, violations of federal environmental laws and conspiring with others to violate federal environmental laws."
None of the government agencies involved in the investigation or the grand jury would comment Monday on whether there was an investigation or whether there is a grand jury convened.
"Grace believes that the investigation is related to its former vermiculite mining and processing activities in Libby, Montana," the press release said. "Grace has not been advised of any details about the possible violations of law and is unable to assess at this point whether the results of this investigation will be material to Grace."
The company did say it is aware that several current and former senior-level employees associated with Grace's construction products businesses have been named as "targets" of the investigation.
EPA criminal investigators were in Libby throughout the summer months, and even served as part of the security detail when EPA director Mike Leavitt made a surprise visit to the community in late August.
However, John Wardell, EPA director for the state of Montana, said the agency does not make comments on criminal investigations. Wardell, and a legal official in the EPA's regional headquarters in Denver, referred The Western News' inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's office [Bill Mercer] in Missoula, who did not return the newspaper's call seeking confirmation of the investigation and grand jury.
Gayla Benefield, an asbestos activist in Libby, said there had been rumors of an investigation circulating throughout the summer.
"It's really a tragedy it had to go this far," Benefield said. "The company should have taken responsibility years ago."
Asbestos victims, as well as members of the Community Advisory Group to the EPA, have been calling for a criminal investigation since the EPA first arrived in Libby in November 1999. The EPA responded to a series of newspaper articles in the Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper about the asbestos-related disease left behind from Grace's former mining and milling operations in Libby.
"People were asking four to five years ago for the company to be held accountable," Benefield said. "It's been a rumor for sometime that they will be held accountable."
Before filing for bankruptcy in April 2001, the company had lost several civil suits to former employees or their families. In those suits, it came out that the company had known of the health hazards at its Libby operations when it purchased the operations from the Zonolite Co. In addition, federal and state studies through the 1970s showed alarming levels of asbestos involved in those operations. A 1982 EPA study showed that a significant quantity of asbestos fibers were captured by an air sampler in downtown Libby. The federal agency never followed up.
Grace did take steps to provide respirators for its employees but the workers complained the filters quickly became clogged and unusable. The company also provided showers for the employees and switched the mill operation from dry to wet to reduce the amount of dust in the air.
Internal company memos, which came out in the civil suits that went to trial, showed that early on Grace officials recognized the significant health hazards of the tremolite asbestos that contaminated the vermiculite they were mining.
Nearly 200 local deaths over the past 20-30 years have been linked to exposure to the tremolite asbestos contaminated vermiculite. Subsequently, a series of health screenings conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry showed about 1,700 people in the Libby area had a lung abnormality consistent with asbestos-related disease. In April 2000, Grace began providing a medical health coverage plan for Libby-area asbestos victims. Presently, more than 800 people are enrolled in that plan. In addition, Grace has made a $250,000 annual contribution to St. John's Lutheran Hospital. The most recent contribution was made in May.
Benefield said, the grand jury investigation "brings credibility to what we've been trying to do. It will help bring closure to a lot of families."
UPDATE: Grace officials indicted
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Date: 5/11/2005
By Steve Kadel, Western News Reporter
The 49-page indictment filed in federal court this week against W.R. Grace and seven employees quotes internal memos from Grace executives outlining options to thwart a government investigation into health risks from the firm's asbestos production. Grace mined vermiculite seven miles northeast of Libby until 1990. Vermiculite from the mine, which was sold as Zonolite attic insulation, was contaminated and has caused asbestos-related cancer in at least 1,200 Libby residents, according to the indictment. The company and its employees are charged with conspiracy, Clean Air Act violations, wire fraud and obstruction of justice.
The grand jury indictment refers to a 1980 meeting between National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health officials and two high-level Grace employees. The meeting was held to discuss NIOSH's proposed epidemiological study of Libby.
Federal attorneys obtained a memo from a Grace employee to defendant O. Mario Favorito, the company's chief legal counsel, and copied to defendant Jack Wolter, a former executive for Grace's construction products division. It discussed Grace's options for responding to the study.
"Obstruct and block, possibly even contesting in the courts," the memo read. "As I understand it, we'd lose and this is not exactly the image we try to project."
Another tactic was to "be slow, review things extensively and contribute to delay. This might not be bad policy generally and it is possible that the new [Reagan] Administration's policies will make NIOSH more selective in how scarce staff resources are allocated after January 20, 1981." Yet another possible tactic mentioned in the memo was to "attempt to apply influence via congressmen, senators, lobbyists or others to get it turned off. However, it is not necessarily successful, can backfire, and to be effective must be developed over long periods of time due to the trust required."
Others named as defendants are Alan Stringer, the mine's last manager; Robert Bettacchi, a senior vice president of Grace; and Robert Walsh, a former Grace vice president; and Henry Eschenbach, former health official for a Grace subsidiary.
Stringer is charged with three counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of endangerment by violating the Clean Air Act, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy. If convicted of all charges he faces up to 70 years in prison.
The indictment alleges that Stringer obstructed the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund clean-up efforts by telling the EPA on-scene coordinator that vermiculite concentrate at Grace's export plant and screening plant contained less than 1 percent tremolite asbestos.
In November 1999, according to the indictment, Stringer told the on-site coordinator [Paul Peronard] that past asbestos contamination problems at the Libby mine had been resolved and conditions were safe.
Throughout late 1999 and early 2000 Stringer led EPA employees and Superfund contractors to contaminated sites without disclosing the extent and nature of contamination at the locations, the indictment contends. Stringer also gave false and misleading information to EPA, the charges allege.
Grace faces a fine of up to $280 million, and could be ordered to pay restitution to the victims. The company declared its innocence in a news release issued this week.
"Grace categorically denies any criminal wrongdoing," the company said. "We are surprised by the government's methods and disappointed by its determination to bring these allegations. We look forward to setting the record straight in a court of law."
Grace added, "As a company and as individuals, we believe that one serious illness or lost life is one too many. That is why we have taken so seriously our commitment to our Libby employees and the people of Libby.
"The individuals who make up the global Grace team are the best in the world. They care deeply about our customers, about their co-workers and about the communities in which they live and raise their families.
"The entire W.R. Grace team is supportive of the citizens of Libby. We hope that our continued and dedicated support for their long-term health care, combined with their characteristic strength and determination, will help them through these difficult times." In 1982, Grace and Eschenbach hired Dr. Richard Monson from the Harvard University School of Public Health to conduct a mortality study of people who worked at the Libby mine from 1950 to 1981. Dr. Monson concluded, and reported to Grace and Eschenbach, that "an excessive number" of employees had died of respiratory system cancer, including mesothelioma.
Eschenbach gave copies of the report to Grace's senior management, including defendants Wolter, Favorito and William McCaig, the mine's former manager.
Eschenbach wrote in his memo, "Our major problem is death from respiratory cancer. This is no surprise."
Grace officials knew at least by 1977 that products made with vermiculite from the Libby mine were releasing tremolite asbestos fibers into the air, according to the indictment. That's because company officials did their own tests which gave that result, the document said. Despite that, Grace gave away vermiculite materials contaminated with tremolite asbestos to the Libby community without disclosing the material's hazardous nature, the indictment noted. The substance was used at the high school and middle school, among other places. In 1976, Grace contracted with Dr. William Smith of Fairleigh Dickinson University to do animal toxicological studies on tremolite asbestos and vermiculite from the mine. Dr. Smith provided regular reports to Grace showing progressive evidence of asbestos related lung disease in hamsters used in the study, including a significant incidence of mesothelioma. However, the contract between Grace and Smith prohibited the doctor from publishing results of the study in scientific literature without Grace's permission. The indictment alleges that Grace officials conspired to "conceal and misrepresent the hazardous nature of the tremolite asbestos contaminated vermiculite, thereby enriching defendants and others. It was a purpose of the conspiracy to increase profits and avoid liability by misleading the government and preventing the government from using its authorities to protect against risks to human health and the environment.
"It was part of the conspiracy that the defendants obstructed, impeded, and frustrated the governmental authorities by withholding information regarding the hazardous nature and friability of the tremolite asbestos-contaminated vermiculite and asserting that the Libby Mine operations and Libby vermiculite posed no risk to public health and safety and the environment."
U.S. Attorney Bill Mercer said the defendants will receive summonses within four weeks to appear before a magistrate in U.S. District Court in Missoula.
"These people will all be coming in and will be advised of their rights," Mercer said. "A trial date will be set, probably within 60 days of that appearance."
He said the federal Speedy Trial Act requires a trial to be scheduled within 70 days of arraignment. However, Grace and the defendants could postpone the trial date by filing a motion indicating they need more time to prepare, Mercer said.
He called the situation in Libby "a human and environmental tragedy" and pledged to hold Grace and its executives responsible.
The jury trial would be held in Missoula. If there is a trial, that is. Attorney Jon Heberling of Whitefish, who represents 540 asbestos victims, said the case might wind up with plea bargains.
He added that national media attention from this week's indictments could help shape an asbestos bill pending before Congress. [see also this news story]. At this point, Heberling said, the bill's language leaves 80 percent of the Grace victims without funding for medical care. Eleven of the 15 people now on oxygen due to asbestos cancer don't qualify for medical coverage under pending legislation, Heberling said.
"Some people who have died of asbestos cancer didn't qualify," he said. "The indictment is a step in the right direction but the main issue is people's medical care, and we have no solution for that.
"The 9-11 victims got $3 million each, but not Libby because it was done slowly. It's the asbestos companies and insurance companies who want to get out of this as cheaply as possible."
Although respiratory cancer usually takes 20 to 40 years to develop, Heberling said symptoms were detected among some Grace workers in as little as five years.
He believes it will take jail time for some top executives to show that white collar crime won't be tolerated.
"White collar crime is very deterrable," he said.
Still, despite dozens of pages of evidence in the indictment, Heberling says convictions are anything but assured.
"The government has to prove its case," he said. "It will be the trial of the century in Montana, if it happens."
[Update: Company and its executives found "not guilty".]
[Update: Alan Springer died before his case was brought to trial.]
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
Posted on The Western News' web site on Friday, Aug 12, 2005
By Brent Shrum
Western News Reporter
Environmental Protection Agency employees working on the Libby asbestos cleanup projects have been barred by headquarters from speaking to the media due to concerns about pending criminal charges against W.R. Grace and a number of current and former company officials, the agency's Peggy Churchill told the Lincoln County Commissioners on Wednesday.
The new policy was announced after the television news show "Nightline" sought interviews with EPA staff for a program about the situation in Libby.
"It turned out that headquarters decided because of the criminal investigation that they did not want us being interviewed by those guys," Churchill told the commissioners.
The new policy requires that all questions from local or national media be directed to an agency spokesperson in Washington, D.C., who will likely have to contact the people involved in the cleanup to get the answers. Churchill said she expects to see the policy will change once the difficulties inherent in the new system become apparent.
In other business, Churchill briefed the commissioners on EPA staffing changes and provided an update on progress of the local cleanup. Churchill said she has assumed most of the day-to-day management duties while project manager Jim Christiansen focuses his work on the record of decision for the project.
Churchill introduced the commissioners to Mike Cirian, who recently joined the EPA's local staff as field project manager. Cirian's background is in environmental engineering and construction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He spent the last eight years working in Wisconsin. He will be managing local construction work for the EPA, Churchill said.
Wendy Thomi, the agency's community involvement coordinator for the Libby project, announced that she will be leaving for a temporary assignment working on the agency's project at the World Trade Center site in New York. She said a new community involvement coordinator will be assigned to Libby by the regional office in Denver.
More than 100 homes have been cleaned toward this year's goal of 200, Churchill said, bringing the total number of cleaned properties to around 500.
At the current rate of 200 per year, the cleanup will take about four more years, she said.
The EPA is planning a public meeting for Oct. 11 [2005] to provide a general update on the project. The meeting is intended to be similar to the large public meetings held early in the agency's involvement in Libby, Thomi said. She said the hope is that people who don't normally come to regular Community Advisory Group meetings will attend.
"We really want to get a lot of people there," she said. "If you only have time for one meeting on this site and asbestos issues, make this the meeting."
[Comment: Read an editorial response from the Libby The Western News newspaper's Roger Morris. - web site editor]
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
December 13, 2006
By David F. Latham
Editor of The Montanian
A new federal report says no one working at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency knows for certain whether the agency's asbestos cleanup efforts in Libby are actually working, even after hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars spent on the job since late 1999.
The report -- entitled "EPA Needs to Plan and Complete a Toxicity Assessment for the Libby Asbestos Cleanup" -- is by the federal Office of the Inspector General (OIG), an independent department that audits U.S. Environmental Protection Agency activities. Released December 5, 2006, the report states among other things that, "EPA cannot be sure that the ongoing Libby cleanup is sufficient to prevent humans from contracting asbestos-related diseases."
OIG initiated the review at the request of Montana's U.S. Senators Max Baucus (D) and Conrad Burns, following articles last summer in the Missoula Independent and The Montanian critical of EPA's cleanup activities in Libby. Also last summer, construction crews unearthed asbestos in Libby not far beneath the surface at a site deemed "clean" by the EPA.
The OIG reported that the EPA has not adequately studied how Libby's unique form of asbestos sickens and kills, and so cannot say whether its cleanup efforts are sufficient. The report states that "EPA has not completed a toxicity assessment of amphibole asbestos necessary to determine the safe level for human exposure; therefore, EPA cannot be sure that the Libby cleanup sufficiently reduces the risk that humans may become ill or, if ill already, get worse."
It further states that "EPA's public information documents ---- Living with Vermiculite and Asbestos in Your Home ---- are inconsistent about safety concerns."
The report comes seven years after regional and national newspapers first made public that asbestos was killing people in Libby. The toxic fibers had been released during mining, milling and processing of vermiculite by W. R. Grace and Company in and near Libby, Montana between 1963 and 1990. EPA officials immediately came to Libby and began emergency clean-up.
Senator Baucus said December 5 that he was "outraged" by the report. "It's an outrage," Baucus said. "Heads should roll at EPA. The people in Libby and the American taxpayers deserve better, much better."
Baucus said he has been asking the EPA for a toxicity review since last spring. "Such an analysis would set a baseline for environmental cleanup standards and verify that houses and other sites that have been cleaned up are indeed safe," Baucus said. "Mothers and fathers believed that the EPA was making Libby safe for their children, and their children's children. The EPA's work in Libby is morally and ethically reprehensible. It has the potential to bring further harm to a community that has already suffered too much."
The EPA's top dog in Libby said the report told him nothing new.
"The Region 8 Libby Team was not surprised by any of the findings of the report, and we are in basic agreement with its findings," said Paul Peronard, EPA's on-site manager of the Libby cleanup. "From our point of view we have been discussing trying to move forward on the toxicity assessment work at the [Technical Assistance Group], [Community Advisory Group], county commissioner, and other sundry meetings for the better on three months now. The general rub is that for the last seven years we have been putting nearly all of our money and efforts into clean ups. This had indeed greatly reduced folks' exposure to asbestos and hence, the risks posed by this exposure."
Peronard said he hopes to be able to answer the question of toxicity soon.
"It is reasonable of folks in Libby and the OIG to expect us to be able to speak with more certainty about the efficacy of our clean ups, and the risks associated with Libby amphibole in general. It is our hope to be able to put more money and effort into this part of the project this year," Peronard said.
Peronard said he was "taken aback" at Baucus' angry response to the report.
"While I am grateful for his interest in the site, and with his championing of the needs of Libby, the vehemence of his response......was over the top," Peronard said. "We think the issues raised by the OIG are legitimate and on point, but we've been aware and working on them for some time. It has always been hard in Libby to ballance the need to do clean ups, and thus reduce risk, with that of collecting baseline science information. I think it is a fair criticism to point out that maybe we should have maybe struck that balance better and/or differently as the project moved forward. However, I think it is too much to use the words like `morally reprehensible.' That in my mind is unfair, unproductive, and off point," Peronard said.
Clinton Maynard ---- a life-long Libby resident, Community Advisory Group member and outspoken critic of the EPA ----- has been pushing for years to get EPA to produce the risk assessment demanded by the report.
"Since the time that EPA senior toxicologist, Dr. Chris Weiss, and on-site coordinator Paul Peronard were pulled out of Libby many years ago, the federal reponse in Libby has deteriorated to the point of being nothing less than shameful," Maynard said in a telephone interview December 7, 2006.
"It took outcries from three local citizens, who weren't into buying snow, a journalist named Paul Peters from the Missoula Independent, an investigator from EPA's Office of the Inspector General [Corey Rumple], who let truth jeopardize his career, and our new technical advisor [Gerry Henningsen], who happens to be a toxicologist, and of course our Montanian newspaper, to bring our concerns to the attention of our U.S. Senator, Max Baucus, who I believe will get to the bottom of this issue to the satisfaction of Libby and America," Maynard said.
I would respectfully suggest to Senator Baucus that the congressional hearings into this matter should include a look at ATSDR," Maynard said.
Maynard has studied Libby's asbestos issue closely and knows more about it than probably anyone outside the EPA.
"In regard to EPA's feeble excuse that `We don't know how toxic amphibole asbestos is yet,' I would suggest that you all have a little chat with your toxicologist," Maynard said.
Maynard has been pushing the EPA for answers about the toxicity of Libby's asbestos for years, largely to no avail. At a Community Advisory Group meeting about two years ago, EPA's then-assistant project manager in the Libby cleanup, Peggy Churchill, flat-out refused to talk about toxicity.
"Clinton, can we please not talk about toxicity?" Churchill said.
The report recommends that EPA do the risk assessment it has been putting off for years. "We recommend that EPA fund and execute a comprehensive amphibole asbestos toxicity assessment to determine (1) the effectiveness of the Libby removal actions, and (2) to determine whether more actions are necessary. The toxicity assessment should include the effects of asbestos exposure on children. The EPA Science Advisory Board should review the toxicity assessment and report to the Office of the Administrator and the Libby Community Advisory Group whether the proposed toxicity assessment can sufficiently protect human health."
The report also recommends that EPA correct misinformation it sent out in its Living With Vermiculite brochure.
"We recommend that EPA review and correct any statements that cannot be supported in any documentation mailed or made available to Libby residents regarding the safety of living with or handling asbestos until EPA confirms those facts through a toxicity assessment."
Baucus said he would do "whatever it takes to get this situation fixed immediately," including directing the EPA to complete a toxicity review through legislation if necessary. He also said he will call for a congressional hearing into the situation as a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the EPA.
"I'm stunned," Baucus said.
"The EPA has dropped the ball and let us all down. I expect them to fix this mess. And those responsible for EPA shortcomings should be held accountable."
Baucus has personally visited Libby nearly 20 times since the asbestos situation became public in 1999.
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
December 31, 2008
The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, has received a contract totaling $2.1 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study the health effects of Libby amphibole, a highly toxic form of asbestos that contaminates vermiculite that was mined in Libby, Montana for over 70 years.
Vermiculite from the former Zonolite - - subsequently W. R. Grace & Company - - mine was distributed to hundreds of locations nationwide for decades in potting soil, building insulation and fireproofing materials. Millions of people who used Libby vermiculite products were exposed to amphibole asbestos, the toxic mineral fiber than can cause asbestosis, a debilitating and sometimes fatal lung condition, mesothelioma, a fatal form of lung cancer, and other illnesses.
The mine near Libby was the world's leading source of vermiculite for 70 years until it closed in 1990. Amphibole-contaminated vermiculite in the United States continues to pose public health risks.
The three-year study will include assembling an inhalation exposure system for the exposure of fibers to laboratory animals, conducting range-finding and definative toxicity studies in rats, and analyzing fiber content of rat tissues following exposure.
Results of the study would be used to determine among other things the effectiveness of the asbestos cleanup currently taking place in Libby and Troy.
The cleanup was launched in December, 1999, by the EPA, without the agency knowing the specific toxicity of amphibole and the degree of removal required to ensure public safety.
A Blast From the Past - - In 1959, Libby High School's Tamarack newspaper reports on a student field trip to the Zonolite mine. [Reprinted in The Western News newspaper, Libby Montana, April 22, 2009]
May 7, 1959
The Libby High School Science Club members and several students and teachers toured the Zonolite Mine Friday. The bus arrived at the school at 4:30 P.M. and the group were off on a new quest for knowledge.
The first stop was at the "crew cut" or open pit in which the Zonolite is mined. After being shown various points of interest by two guides, Winston Sahinen and Ray Kujawa, the group advanced to the Zonolite mill. There the visitors were divided into two parties.
The separate groups were then shown through both the "wet" and "dry" mill, and the testing station, where they were given samples of Zonolite. Next stop was the loading station where the guides explained how the ore is shipped after being mined and milled.
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
May 13, 2009
By David F. Latham
Editor of The Montanian
After deliberating only one day, jurors on Friday, May 8, 2009, returned not guilty verdicts in the W. R. Grace & Co. trial, ruling in favor of the company and three individual defendants.
Grace and three former executives - - Robert Bettacchi, Henry Eschenbach and Jack Wolter - - were charged with a federal conspiracy involving violations of the Clean Air Act of 1990, and obstruction of justice.
The charges related to whether the company and its top officials knew they were endangering the community of Libby by mining vermiculite ore contaminated with tremolite asbestos, and whether they did so in violation of federal law.
The jury of six men and six women took a relatively short time to decide after having heard 11 weeks of testimony in between hundreds of defense objections and motions that sometimes slowed the trial to a snail's pace.
At issue was the fact that at least 250 people have died of asbestos-related diseases and hundreds more have been sickened in Libby, and the source is clear: tremolite-laced vermiculite from Zonolite Mountain, owned and operated by Grace from 1963 to 1990.
But the jury in Federal District Court in Missoula unanimously concluded that the human disaster was not a criminal matter by the company.
The jury rejected the federal government's case, which said Grace was a greedy mine operator that purposely hid the dangers of its products from workers and the government as it continued to mine and process ore that exposed thousands of Libby residents to tremolite, causing widespread sickness and death.
At the heart of the case were two questions: What did the company and its executives know about the dust from its mine, just north of Libby, and when did they act - - or not - - upon that knowledge?
The prosecutors presented thousands of pieces of evidence, among them internal company memos dating back to the 1970s, that the dangers were well-known inside Grace about naturally-occurring tremolite, a mineral fiber that burrows permanently into lungs and produces toxic, often deadly, effects.
That tremolite is in vermiculite, a mica-like mineral that exfoliates - - that is, expands in two opposite directions - - when heated. Vermiculite has been used nationwide for decades as building insulation and as a soil conditioner. In was mined commercially in Libby beginning around 1920. Grace bought the mine in 1963 and closed it in 1990.
That same pattern of facts and dates was also the bulwark of the defense case. Yes, Grace was aware of the dangers, defense lawyers told the jury. They also said the company took steps to mitigate those dangers and follow federal health and safety rules, even as the body of research grew about the particular kind of asbestos in Libby.
That left the jury to ponder some gray areas of corporate behavior. [.....]
But by the time deliberations began on May 6, the prosecution's case was seriously undermined because the jury had heard District Judge Donald Molloy denounce star prosecution witness Robert H. Locke. Molloy also raised doubts in front of jurors about the tactics and practices of the prosecutors from the United States Attorney's office.
[......] evidence provided by the prosecution showed that, while on the witness stand, Mr. Locke had grossly understated his relationship with prosecutors and government investigators. [.....]
Of the eight defendants in the original indictment opened in February, 2005, only four remained at the end for the jury to consider, including the company and three executives: Mr. Bettacchi, Henry A. Eschenbach and Jack Wolter.
One former manager, Alan Stringer [see: 1, 2], died in February, 2007, and the case against two other defendants, Robert C. Walsh and William J. McCaig, were thrown out in the last days of the trial at the request of the prosecution.
Another executive, O. Mario Favorito, was granted a separate trail that is still pending. The case against him appears unlikely to succeed as the bulk of evidence is largely identical to that used unsuccessfully in this case. [.....]
[Update: The federal criminal case against Mr. Favorito was later dropped. - - web site editor].
-From The Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
June 24, 2009
After more than eight years of political and bureaucratic delays, the federal government on June 17, 2009, declared a public health emergency in Libby and Troy, Montana under the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Superfund" law.
`Public health emergency' is a designation that requires the government to provide medical care and other services to the affected areas.
This is the agency's first such declaration since it was formed in 1980, and is expected to provide an additional $125 million over five years for cleanup of contaminated properties, and for medical services to people in Libby and Troy affected by exposure to tremolite, and especially toxic form of asbestos.
The announcement was made at a joint press conference in Washington, D. C., with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U. S. Senators Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Jon Tester (D-Montana).
"This is a truely historic day for the people of Libby, and for justice," said Senator Baucus in his opening statement at the press conference. Baucus has long pushed for the federal declaration, saying it would help provide funding, particularly for treatment of asbestos-related disease. Now, he said, Libby residents "will get the help they deserve."
"[EPA] has determined that a public health emergency exists at the Libby asbestos site," the agency announced in a release on its website. "Over the past years, hundreds of asbestos-related disease cases have been documented in this small community, which covers the towns of Libby and Troy."
"This is a long-overdue common-sense decision that will go a long way for Libby and the thousands of folks who were poisoned there," said Senator Tester in a prepared statement at the press conference. "This decision will help make quality health care more accessible and it will open the door to get new resources on the ground. We still have a long way to do right by the folks in Libby. Working together with HHS and EPA, we're making very good progress."
[....]
Libby was named a national Superfund site in 2002, the same year [Bush] Environmental Protection Agency officials abruptly reversed their decision to declare a public health emergency. That reversal surprised many in and outside of the agency who had been expecting the declaration, and Baucus was among those who blamed political meddling from the Bush administration.
With the new [Obama] administration in power, Baucus pressed EPA head Lisa Jackson to revisit the issue.
Jackson said Libby's public health emergency status is "based on the best science we can muster" and confirms the new administration's commitment to Libby residents.
At the press conference, Baucus recounted his meeting many years ago with former miner Les Skramstad, who died in January 2007 of asbestos-related illness. Baucus said Skramstad's wife and two of his children also are affected, and a third Skramstad child is diagnosed with cancer.
[.....]
Although tremolite-tainted vermiculite from Libby was shipped nationwide for decades, Jackson called Libby's contamination "unique" and said she did not expect the designation to trigger similar declarations at other sites around the country. Libby, she said, is a prime candidate, due to the widespread contamination and "limited" medical options.
[....]
A declaration of public health emergency was first proposed in early 2001 by Paul Peronard, EPA's on-scene coordinator in Libby at the time. EPA was on the verge of making the declaration but on April 9, 2002, the agency abruptly reversed itself.
A Senate investigation conducted by Baucus and published in September 2008 under the title "EPA's Failure to Declare a public health emergency in Libby, Montana," found that EPA buckled to pressure from the Bush Administration and W. R. Grace.
The investigation found that on May 1, 2002, EPA official Marjorie Buckholtz sent an email to seven other EPA employees in which she wrote, "EPA is in W. R. Grace's pocket and is afraid to declare a [public health emergency] because they [Grace] didn't want us to."
[Comment: Get the U.S. Senate's detailed report on the Bush EPA's earlier blockage of the Public Health Emergency for Libby] - - web site editor.
-From The Western News Newspaper, Libby, Montana
July 15, 2009
By Canda Harbaugh
Vans equipped with rooftop satellites scoped out opportunities to illustrate a town that had been declared by the federal government as a public health emergency.
Even before the June 17 announcement, television news stations attempted to show the town's struggles by filming elderly residents with oxygen tanks in tow or the low-hanging curl of wood smoke from a winter inversion.
An early morning shot of Libby before business opened or the town filmed in black-and-white also lent itself to a story of what was perceived as a deteriorating community.
"When they were doing all these negative stories about Lincoln County and Libby, they said, "We've got to film in black and white because it's just too pretty here," county commissioner Tony Berget said last week during the Libby Area Chamber of Commerce's monthly luncheon. "I feel blessed that they had to do that."
Berget gave business owners a pep talk about overcoming last month's negative news coverage concerning the Libby Asbestos Superfund Site's new designation.
We need to keep looking at the positives we have," Berget said, "and keep improving."
National news coverage of the declaration panicked potential tourists and yielded some strange inquiries, becoming the most recent stumbling block in Libby's efforts to shed the label of "a town left to die".
Dusti Thompson, executive director of the Libby Area Chamber of Commerce, estimates that about every six months, the Superfund site comes up in national news and reverses headway on efforts to change Libby's image.
"Every time that Libby is standing on its own two feet again, trying to get past this stigma, they do something like this, and it just pushes us 10 steps back," Thompson said.
".... They come in, they stir up everybody and then they leave."
The morning after the public health emergency was announced, Thompson was greeted with about 25 voicemails and 45 e-mails from alarmed outsiders that believed Libby was quarantined - that no one could come in or out of the area.
"They wanted to drop their reservations; they wanted to know if there were alternative routes," Thompson said.
"One lady's mother lives here and she was worried about how to get her mom out."
Motels in Libby and Troy did not report cancellations immediately after the announcement, though a few reported receiving inquiries about the safety of visiting the area. One motel manager said that business has been slower than usual, but that it could be attributed to the bad economy.
Jeff Forster, owner of Woodland RV Park, had a number of reservation cancellations and heard rumors that motels had too. He was on vacation when the declaration was anounced.
"When I came back, I asked, `What happened to all of the reservations?" Forster said. "They thought we were quarantined - - it was plastered all over the Internet."
Thompson worries that small businesses that depend on summer tourism to survive the winter will suffer from lower sales in August and September. Her office is doing what it can to throw light on what the declaration means and to debunk any myths about Libby being unsafe.
"When they see this on a national news channel, the first thing they feel is panic," Thompson said. "We were able to talk a lot of them back to sticking with their plans."
The declaration has had no apparent impact on real estate, according to Mark Roberts, president of the Lincoln County Board of Realtors.
"It might be discouraging initially," Roberts said, "but I think we'll be fine. There's been no major upheaval."
While local real estate hasn't been booming for years, Roberts said that the past four or five years have been positive until the recent national housing crash, which has slowed the local market.
The public health emergency has also led some outside companies to fish for business in Libby.
Two law firms -- one based in Pennsylvania and the other in Georgia -- approached The Western News immediately after the declaration to advertise that they could help get compensation for patients who suffer from asbestos-related disease. The firm that ended up advertising reported receiving no calls.
Evironmental restoration contractors also jumped on the opportunity for work in Libby, said Mike Cirian, field leader in Libby for the Environmental Protection Agency.
"I don't know if they thought it (the cleanup work) was new or what," Cirian said. "I told them there's a lot of people waiting for jobs around here already."
Cirian reported a number of calls the first week, but said that things have since died down and that he only receives an occasional inquiry.
Thompson, too, said that correspondence with alarmed outsiders has slowed to about 10 calls and five e-mails per week.
Though news of the declaration has had a negative impact on Libby's image, Roberts points out that the designation will have positive effects other than just providing health care.
"It'll help in some regards," he said. "It will bring jobs, and doctors and researchers in, and I'm sure we're going to get plenty of grants."
Thompson believes that the future story of Libby will be a positive one.
"When it's all said and done," Thompson said, "Libby is going to be the cleanest place on earth to live, and it's already the most beautiful place."
[Comment: An editorial response to the above story]
-From the Kootenai Valley Record Newspaper, Libby, Montana
February 16, 2010
By Brent Shrum
Kootenai Valley Record
Air and soil samples taken at local schools over the past year turned up a handful of low-level detections of Libby amphibole asbestos fibers, but the results aren't cause for alarm among parents, according to an Environmental Protection Agency toxicologist.
All of the hits were "right at the detection limit", said Dr. David Berry during the EPA's annual update town meeting last Monday night.
As to the issue of whether it's safe to send children to school, "I think the answer to that is yes," Berry said.
Indoor air samples, soil samples, and activity-based samples were taken at Kootenai Valley Head Start (formerly Plummer Elementary), Asa Wood Elementary, Libby Middle School and Libby High School along with the school administration building. The indoor air samples were taken using stationary detectors over two days while students were in the building. The activity-based samples were collected by workers wearing protective gear and simulating outdoor activities by both students - such as playing on athletic fields and playgrounds - and maintenance workers, such as mowing lawns, raking and sweeping.
Out of 51 samples, one indoor detection occurred in a classroom at Asa Wood, and one occurred in a hallway at Libby Middle School.
"Both of these detections were right at the detection limit, so they were very small detections," Berry said.
Berry attributed the indoor detections to "track-in" of contamination from outside the school.
"That is people bringing the material in on their shoes or on their clothing," he said.
Out of 41 soil samples, six had visible vermiculite detections. Analysis by polarized light microscopy picked up trace levels of Libby amphibole asbestos in samples from all five locations.
Levels were much lower than those detected in 2001, prior to cleanup of heavily contaminated areas, Berry noted. In those samples, levels as high as 15 percent Libby amphibole were detected.
Better sampling methods in use today could account for trace levels being detected where a few years ago samples would have come back "non-detect", Berry said.
Out of 63 activity-based samples, five detections occurred at three schools. One groundskeeping activity turned up a hit at the Head Start center, one detection occurred on a playground at Asa Wood, there was one groundskeeping detection and one student activity detection at the Libby Middle School soccer field, and there was one detection for simulated football activity at Libby High School. [See also this related news story from 2001].
[ Another related news story].
Ambient air sampling in downtown Libby indicates a "very significant decrease" in asbestos fiber levels, Berry said. An average of 2008 samples showed a concentration of 0.0000056 fibers per cubic centimeter, compared to 0.0001 to 0.00086 fibers per cubic centimeter in 2002 and 0.59 fibers per cubic centimeter before W. R. Grace closed its vermiculite (Zonolite) mining and milling operations in 1990. Federal workplace standards for asbestos - but not specifically Libby amphibole, which is believed by many to be more toxic - allow a maximum concentration of 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter, Berry noted.
Berry said he expects "sporadic detections" to occur both indoors and outdoors for the foreseeable future. "Libby amphibole asbestos will remain at low levels in the Libby valley for a long time," he said.
-From the Montanian Newspaper, Libby, Montana
April 14, 2010
The [Libby City] Council passed a resolution to approve a letter to Montana's congressional delegation and other government officials supporting the proposed Montanore Mine. "We have the highest unemployment in the state," Mayor Roll said. "This mine means 300 jobs here. We need it. It's very important to us."
This web page is dedicated to all who fight for a clean healthful environment.