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Libby Montana Asbestos: Town plagued by W.R. Grace’s remains

Montana Asbestos Lawyer news: Town known as God’s Corner suffers ongoing asbestos pollution from Grace’s plant.

05/25/2010 // West Palm Beach, FL, USA // Tara Monks // Tara Monks

Libby, MT – Libby is a town in the northwest corner of Montana, oftentimes referred to as “God’s Corner,” according to the city’s website, www.libbymt.com, and Fox News. Among the list of area attractions are scenic spots such as Kootenai Falls, Lake Koocanusa, Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area and Ross Creek Cedars. The area is an outdoorsman’s paradise, in some respects, offering views and activities for everyone. What cannot be seen in the Libby area photography, though, is the asbestos fibers left by W.R. Grace, that have taken the lives of at least 400 people.

Libby Montana was established in the 1800s as a mining and fur trading outpost. W.R. Grace, a chemicals and materials company, purchased a vermiculite operation in 1963. By the 1970s, Grace was producing almost 2 million tons of ore yearly and employed approximately 200 miners and other workers within the city. The vermiculite was stripped from the Zonolite Mountain and shipped around the world for use in insulation.

The ore consisted of 80 percent asbestos, an unmarketable material. Grace had to crush the rock in order to release the fibers, sending the lethal materials into plumes that wafted six miles down the mountain into the town. She shiny, powdery traces covered everything.

In 1964, workers had already appealed to the state Board of Health to help clean the unhealthy conditions. In 1978, the Environmental Protection Agency caught wind of the situation. In 1981, a Grace scientist discovered that track runners at the local high school were kicking up dangerous levels of asbestos.

Montana issued orders for Grace to cut down on dust levels and to upgrade filtering equipment, but not much was done. The federal government stayed out of the situation.

Grace kept the operation running until 1990.

The EPA, which first heard of the plight of Libby in 1978, decided to finally get involved after a newspaper upped coverage of the situation in 1999.

W.R. Grace declared bankruptcy in 2001.

Grace endured an eight-year court battle against the EPA in efforts to limit its cleanup responsibilities. In 2008, Grace settled the suit and agreed to pay the EPA $250 million in cleanup costs.

After the decision was reached and reporters searched for comments, a spokesman for the company told the press, “They settled the lawsuit…They are not interested in talking about Libby anymore.”

Since 1999, the EPA has overseen cleanups for over 1,250 homes and businesses within Libby. Over 70,000 truckloads of contaminated soil has been removed from family yards, parks and city properties. Crews have removed piles of waste that kids, who used to marvel over the fluffy, shiny material, used to slide down.

In 2009, the roads and highways of Libby were added to the list of areas needing cleanup.

Needless to say, the asbestos is everywhere. It remains in bedroom walls and town parks. The ponderosa pines closest to the mine contain over 500 million fibers per gram of bark. The trees surrounding the area average 19 million fibers per gram.

In 2009, several Grace executives who were prosecuted for covering up asbestos danger were found not guilty. The U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy decided that because some documents that suggested Grace’s culpability were decades old, they could not be used as evidence.

Not a single person has seen jail time for the disaster that is Libby.

Media Information:

Address: Libby, Montana
Phone: (866) 598-1315
Url: http://TaraMonks.visionsmartnews.com/libby-montana-asbestos-remains_460.html

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