A Dangerous Lie
admin | Jul 27, 2006 | Comments 0
by Paul Peters
A version of this story appeared in the Missoula Independent on 07/27/06.
In November 1999, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported the news that 192 people had died and another 375 had been sickened by exposure to asbestos from W.R. Grace & Company’s Libby vermiculite mine, which closed in 1990. The ill effects were not limited to miners, but struck down many who had never even been to the mine. The newspaper posited that Grace executives, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other government agencies knew the dangers of the mine, but did nothing to stop exposure. The EPA began its cleanup of Libby almost immediately afterward.
Dr. Gerry Henningsen, Gordon Sullivan, Abe Troyer and Clinton Maynard say the worst thing anyone could possibly say about the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup of Libby: That after six years of abatement, at a cost of $110 million, and with Montana’s one-time shot at an expedited Superfund cleanup spent, exposure to asbestos, which has now killed approximately 300 and sickened 2,000 in Libby, continues.
Furthermore, they say the EPA has intentionally misled Libby residents about the potential danger of that ongoing exposure and enacted unscientific cleanup policies that will lead to continued exposure and a huge financial burden for Libby and Montana. The men say their claims are supported by a report, created by the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), that has been buried. They say the report was written by OIG investigator Cory Rumple in early May, after he had interviewed Henningsen, Sullivan, Troyer and Maynard about their complaints with the EPA cleanup, and then corroborated those complaints through his investigation.
The Independent submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the OIG on May 2, complete with a number identifying Rumple’s report (2006-8004), and on June 30 received a particularly evasive answer: “With respect to the information requested, this office can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any documents responsive to your request. An official acknowledgement from this government entity could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy.” U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns’ office had also been told of the report’s existence by Gordon Sullivan and, after requesting a copy and receiving a similar answer, Burns has demanded the OIG come clean about the report and provide a timeline as to when it will be released to the people of Libby.
Whether the report ultimately sees the light of day or not, Henningsen, Sullivan, Troyer and Maynard say they know what it is likely to contain. The men say they learned of the report’s findings in an April 21 conference call with Rumple, who outlined his report’s contents. While he told them it would speak to their concerns over the cleanup, he also assured them it would not affect the current federal case against Grace’s former executives that seeks to hold them accountable for what happened in Libby. Finally, he told the four men that he expected the OIG to try and bury the report.
Rumple declined to speak to the Independent on the record. Frustrated that efforts by the Independent, Sen. Burns, and themselves to obtain a copy of Rumple’s report had been rebuffed, the four men revealed details of their complaints about the EPA, and Rumple’s description of his report’s contents, to the Independent in a July 12 meeting at Flathead Valley Community College’s Libby branch.
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