Asbestos cleanup still plagued
admin | May 07, 2009 | Comments 3
Photo: Mountains above Libby, Montana. (Photo courtesy Cathie Sullivan).
By Paul Peters
A quick read of the introduction to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of the Inspector General’s April 29, 2009 release of the Rumple Report would suggest OIG Special Agent Cory Rumple is satisfied with its results.
The report, he writes, resulted in the retraction of EPA documents in Libby that he, and the four men who made knowledge of the report public, believed were misleading Libby citizens on the known risk of amphibole asbestos. It also brought a criminal investigation, and got the EPA to stop trying to issue a Record of Decision (ROD), a contract specifying exactly what the agency will do to finish the cleanup.
But those four men, who include Gerry Henningsen, Gordon Sullivan, Abe Troyer and Clinton Maynard are not jumping for joy.
According to Gordon Sullivan, “Nothing’s changed.”
The EPA, he says, is almost exactly where it was three years ago, when the Rumple Report was written, “They’re pushing for a ROD without a Risk Assessment.” In 2006, Sullivan and others questioned how the agency could specify its final cleanup plans without knowing what risks were posed to the community by amphibole asbestos.
At that time, Henningsen noted that “Once they (the EPA) finalize the ROD, they’re done, and you’ll play hell to ever get them back in town again. Their legal obligation is over.”
The issue then, and now, is that the EPA has yet to create a Risk Assessment for Libby, which is a comprehensive study that determines both what the ongoing exposure to asbestos is in Libby, and how toxic the substance is. In December of 2006, the EPA admitted it did not know the risks associated with amphibole asbestos, and in June of 2008, the federal government announced that the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR) would do an $8 million study over five years to determine the toxicity of amphibole asbestos.
This poses a few problems. For one, the ATSDR does not plan on finishing its assessment until 2013, but the EPA is already planning how it will finish the cleanup. On top of that, this study only establishes how toxic the substance is. In order to understand risk, it is necessary to know how much of it the public is being exposed to. Finally, the ATSDR has an issue with credibility. In March of 2009, a scathing congressional report was released that, in part, concluded:
[A]cross the nation local community groups believe that ATSDR has failed to protect them from toxic exposures and independent scientists are often aghast at the lack of scientific rigor in its health consultations and assessments. The studies lack the ability to properly attribute illness to toxic exposures and the methodologies used by the agency to identify suspected environmental exposures to hazardous chemicals are doomed from the start.
Perhaps most disconcertingly, the report notes that in 2006 the ATSDR found amphibole asbestos at Illinois Beach State Park, and, despite having no complete scientific information about the risks associated with this substance, declared the beach to be safe.
This, of course, does not inspire much confidence in the ATSDR’s ability to deliver a study of amphibole toxicity that, at best, would give Libby and the EPA half the information it needs to do a risk assessment.
Henningsen notes that, even if the EPA were to change course on the toxicity study and the ROD, there is another huge problem.
He says that EPA’s Region 8 office (which is based out of Denver and covers a geographic area that includes Montana) pressured and misled the citizens of Libby to accept a settlement from W.R. Grace & Co. of $250 million dollars, telling them this was a good settlement.
On March 12, 2008, Grace agreed to pay $250 million to the EPA Superfund program. The agreement settled a claim brought by the federal government under Superfund law to recover costs related to asbestos removal from Libby properties.
“Basically, that would do nothing,” Henningsen says of the settlement. “The average Superfund site costs $1 billion to clean. Here they are going to spend a total of less than $250 million and let Grace off the hook for the worst site ever in the nation.”
Henningsen even provides a chart, showing settlements for Superfund sites across the nation. It is easy to see that Libby falls near the bottom for settlements.
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Terry Trent says:
Hi! I dunno what this web sitehttp://blog.umt.edu/gracecase/ is all about but am thinking it would be nice if it were a continuation of the previous Grace Case web site. It was so refreshing hearing from sources other than the usual suspects (our almost completely lost newspapers and books). May I suggest that comments be distributed between this web site and Paul Peters new web site at http://www.asbestoswatch.net/2009/05/07/introducing-asbestos-watch/ or http://www.asbestoswatch.net/2009/05/07/feds-release-rumple-report/. I hope to see the whole gang, yes you too Mr. Latham, for whom I have gained a great deal more respect, and everyone else who I have learned respect for, at these two new sites.
My first topic, although by no means obligates any of you in your own first topics, will be to answer Student and Steve Erickson and explain to them that “asbestos” is not a lazy man’s subject, opinions are hard fought and studied for to be accurate and are not taken lightly. That the truth lays in the publications and histories of the great men who have devoted their lives to this subject, and the “whack” lays in the publications, histories and monstrous (in magnitude) neglect perpetrated by our old Public Health agency now EPA/ATSDR. How EPA’s actions and inactions do not exonerate anyone….yet their shear size by comparison dwarfs WR Grace’s infractions. Also how I am not responsible that our government wasn’t smart enough to press the correct charges against Grace….or even the correct people.
Finally the 5 defendants exonerated themselves in front a jury of their peers and a Judge who paid attention. They did it easily and swiftly, although I suspect they are all emotional basket cases by now. Do not attempt to take that away from them. The jury in reality didn’t even have to think about it much, they just did what was right, almost immediately. Our EPA could learn a lot about doing what is right…immediately…from such people.
Best regards,
Terry
FLASH!!!! Libby air safe. All told to take deep breathe. I shit you not…
Why not put a gun to your head with five bullets instead of 1…
FLASH!!!! Libby man diagnosed with asbestosis after moving to Libby 5 years ago.Who murdered that man???
FLASH!!!! Who the hell cares!!!!
With regard to the “nothing changed” comment, a few weeks ago a significant release of asbestos bearing material, flowed into the Kootenai River where endangered species are a major consideration. When asked why the EPA never reported the release to the Montana Department of Enviromental Quality, or the USFWS, project managers went back almost a decade to hang their hat on flawed science. Managers maintain that in the past the material in question had been sampled and tested by PLM and resulted in a “non-detect reading”. Anyone, including kids in our local grade school, who understand the EPA, knows full well that a non-detect result under PLM does not constitute the absence of asbestos. To the contrary, non-detect samples may contain huge levels of asbestos and maybe “very dangerous”. This is deception at it’s best. Something the EPA Region 8 has gotten very good at doing.