Warning label from the back of a Zonolite bag.

When it comes to asbestos, you’d think the Environmental Protection Agency would at the very least try not to kick up any more dust to add to the contaminated sites it is still trying to get its arms around.

But, according to The Republican, the agency has offered to clean an area contaminated with tremolite asbestos from Libby, Montana in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Once the EPA has done the cleanup, the city plans to put in a 1,000-foot section of bike path on the property. The bike trail is being supported by the federal Rails to Trails program. The city also plans to place a sewer line under the path. According to the article, $750,000 in federal money has been approved for the work.

In Libby, according to the Center for Asbestos Related Disease, hundreds have died and thousands have been sickened from exposure to tremolite asbestos there. Libby asbestos has been shown time and again to be extremely dangerous to human health, even in low doses according to at least one study.

So at first glance, the EPA’s offer to “clean” Libby asbestos sounds like a good thing. But consider that in In 2006, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General issued a report declaring that EPA had no way of knowing whether or not 7 years and $110 million of cleaning by the EPA had managed to reduce risk posed by tremolite in Libby, because the agency has not done any risk analysis on its own for tremolite asbestos. The risk analysis is currently underway, and is expected to be completed in 2012.

From 1963 to 1984 (according to an ATSDR report attached further down in this story), the site for the proposed Easthampton bike trail was a Zonolite processing plant for W.R. Grace & Company. Zonolite was the name given to vermiculite ore mined in Libby after a heating process had expanded it and made it suitable for use as a home insulation product. Vermiculite, and products made from it, were contaminated with tremolite asbestos from Libby. Grace also processed Monokote fireproofing material in Easthampton, which was made using Libby asbestos and used to fireproof buildings. Both of these products have been banned.

Grace’s activities at this site seem to have heavily contaminated it, according to this December 2006 report made by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Testing on the site found significant asbestos contamination. The report notes that asbestos was even detected in air samples taken off the property.

The report notes that in as early as 2000 the bike trail proposal for the site had already been made, and that, “Exposure concerns with regard to asbestos will need to be addressed before construction.”

The EPA’s webpage on the Easthampton site states that it is “unknown” by the agency if human exposure to asbestos there is currently under control.

It would seem that, in order to adequately address a cleanup of this sort, the EPA would first have to have the risk analysis its own office of the inspector general has said they need. Apparently, neither lack of information nor the deadly history of tremolite asbestos will stop the EPA from poking a stick into this hornet’s nest.

Montana Senator Max Baucus (center) with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (left) and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, right, at a press conference announcing Public Health Emergency for Libby.

by Paul Peters

When the EPA first tried to declare a public health emergency in Libby, Montana in 2002, they were particularly concerned about Zonolite, a type of attic insulation from vermiculite mined in Libby which contains Libby amphibole asbestos.
Zonolite is a product that was manufactured by W.R. Grace, the same company once accused of knowingly exposing the people Libby to deadly asbestos. Zonolite can be found in approximately 30 million homes and buildings in the U.S. It was also processed at several sites around the country.
Furthermore, tremolite asbestos, one of the main constituents of the asbestos type found in Zonolite, occurs in residential areas like El Dorado Hills, Calif., and has been found on Oak Street Beach in Chicago.
In 2002, Grace, with help from the White House Office of Budget Management (OMB), stymied efforts to declare an emergency. At the time, the EPA wanted to remove Zonolite attic insulation from Libby homes. To remove a commercial product like Zonolite from homes and businesses, the EPA was required by law to declare an emergency.
Although the EPA announced in 2002 that it would remove attic insulation from Libby homes, Grace and the OMB had stopped the emergency declaration and kept the Zonolite name out of the press. Click here to read more about the first attempt at an emergency declaration.
Although the EPA finally declared a public health emergency in Libby last week, the word Zonolite was never uttered, or written.
None of the official documentation accompanying the decision (which you can find here), including the press release, mention Zonolite.
EPA head Lisa Jackson did not use the product name in her press conference on the emergency declaration, although she did say that, “Today EPA is launching a national education program focused on vermiculite insulation to ensure the continued education and safety of all Americans.”
(continued)

W.R. Grace promotional products for asbestos-containing Zonolite Attic Insulation. Photo courtesy Anthony Rich.

by Paul Peters

Eight years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tried to do what it finally did on June 17, 2009. That is, declare a public health emergency in the town of Libby, Montana.
In Libby, about 290 people have died and another 2,000 have been sickened due to asbestos exposure from a former W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine just outside of town.
The declaration contains several flaws which you can read about here.
It does not, contrary to most reporting, provide any additional money to Libby. In answers to a host of questions from Asbestos Watch, the EPA stated that money for the cleanup is actually coming out of funds it had already received from W.R. Grace one year ago (EPA answered these questions on the condition that Asbestos Watch would not attribute them to any one official). There is no “new” money going to Libby as a result of this public health emergency declaration.
And it’s more than a little interesting that the declaration comes now, after W.R. Grace, the company responsible for releasing the contaminants that poisoned Libby, has safely cleared the deck of all lawsuits pertaining to its operations in Libby, and has reached a settlement with the federal government that protects the company from future health care and cleanup costs in Libby.
(story continues)

The seven men had been charged with violating the clean air act and knowingly exposing the people of Libby, Mont. to dangerous levels of asbestos. To this date, 290 people have died of asbestos disease in Libby, and another 1,800-2,000 have been sickened by asbestos exposure there, according to Dr. Brad Black, director of the Center for Asbestos Related Disease in Libby.

Grace attorney Favorito had been part of the original case against the managers, but had his case separated because he was also the other six defendant’s legal counsel, which could have created a conflict of interest.

The government’s move to dismiss the case comes as no surprise, considering that a unanimous jury dismissed all charges against the other executives on May 8, 2009 (click here for a good story on that case).

What may be interesting now is that many employees of the Environmental Protection Agency have been under a gag order, restricting them from talking to the media about issues regarding Libby. The lifting of this order may free up some important sources for future investigative reports about continued issues with asbestos pollution in Libby.

Click here to read the full story in Missoulian.

The companies that owned the Zonolite mine shipped vermiculite all over the country for years in a variety of products. It was used to insulate at least 35 million homes in the U.S., and more in Canada betweenn1960 and the mid-1980s.
It was also used in Monokote, a fireproofing spray developed by W.R. Grace & Co., the last owners of the vermiculite mine.

In the U.S., builders used Monokote to fireproof 60 to 80 percent of steel-frame buildings constructed during the 1970s and 1980s, including the bottom 40 floors of the main World Trade Center buildings (the twin towers) and all of World Trade Center 7, which also collapsed on 9/11.

Vermiculite from the mine was also shipped to at least 245 sites across the U.S., 28 of which were processing plants. The mine was closed in 1990, and in 1999, the Environmental Protection Agency began investigating health problems in Libby, Montana, and soon initiated a Superfund cleanup there.

Libby now has the highest asbestos-related mortality rate in the U.S., with more than 200 people dead from exposure, and thousands more sickened.

According to health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fatalities from asbestos-related diseases are rising in the U.S. The reported 18,068 fatalities between 1999 and 2005 occurred as a result of mesothelioma, a cancer directly associated with asbestos exposure. During this time, the frequency of mesothelioma deaths annually rose by 222 per year.

Studies have shown that people with low-level, non-occupational, exposures to amphibole asbestos are developing lung disease. In other words, you didn’t need to live in Libby, or have worked work at a mine or processing plant to receive deadly doses of amphibole asbestsos.

Asbestos related disease has a long latency period, meaning that adults exposed to the toxin today could see health effects in 20 to 40 years.

A version of this story appeared in the Missoula Independent on 01/04/2007.

Christmas came early for W.R. Grace & Co. this year when U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Judith Fitzgerald issued a Dec. 14 opinion stating that the company’s Zonolite-brand attic insulation, used in as many as 35 million U.S. homes and businesses, poses “No unreasonable risk of harm” to homeowners.

The insulation contains asbestos from Grace’s former Libby vermiculite mine, exposure to which is blamed for more than 200 deaths in Libby.

Both Grace and lawyers for Zonolite claimants agree that Zonolite contains Libby asbestos fibers, and that those fibers can be released when disturbed.

But Grace, according to the opinion, argued that “the fiber release from [Zonolite] must be at levels which pose unreasonable risk of harm to human health.”

In her opinion, Fitzgerald agreed, writing that lawyers for the homeowners asserted “the mere presence of [Zonolite] in attics poses an unreasonable risk of harm” but provided “no evidence to support that contention.”

That could be because the evidence isn’t in yet.

As the Independent and other Montana media have reported in the last year, the actual danger posed by the specific type of asbestos found in Libby, and in Zonolite, has never been determined. Recently, U.S. Sen. Max Baucus and the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General were finally able to pressure the EPA into doing a comprehensive study on the risk posed by Libby asbestos. That study has yet to be completed.

Lawyers involved with the Zonolite case did not return phone calls from the Independent, but Dr. Gerry Henningsen, who worked as an EPA toxicologist for 12 years and currently works as a technical adviser to Libby residents on the EPA cleanup, points out the impact such a study might have had on the case.

“There’s no direct evidence to show how dangerous or harmful [Libby asbestos] is,” he says. “If you don’t have any data, how do you prevail in court? You can’t.”

But information on Libby asbestos is expected to become available within the year, and in the meantime lawyers for the Zonolite claimants have already filed an appeal.