US transfers care for towns polluted with asbestos to state

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Matthew Brown, Associated Press
Updated 6:22 pm CDT, Wednesday, July 1, 2020



Photo: Rick Bowmer, AP
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FILE - This Feb. 17, 2010, aerial file photo, shows the town of Libby Mont. With a decades-long cleanup of asbestos contamination in the town largely completed, state officials are taking over the effort to protect residents from future exposure to the potentially deadly material.


BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — State regulators are taking over maintenance of a decades-long environmental cleanup in two northwestern Montana towns where lung-damaging asbestos contamination has been blamed in hundreds of deaths.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday transferred responsibility for protecting the towns of Libby and Troy from further contamination to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

Asbestos from a vermiculite mine owned by W.R. Grace polluted the area until the mine was shuttered in 1990. Cleanup work began in 2000, after media reports spurred federal officials to investigate widespread health problems among area residents.

More than 2,600 homes, businesses and other properties were cleaned up at a cost of more than $600 million under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program for hazardous sites. Roughly 1 million cubic yards of soil and other material were removed during that process.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/article/US-transfers-care-for-towns-polluted-with-15379726.php

[sandensea]

1. And if Cheeto still wins MT after this, what can one say.

[jalan48]

2. My uncle worked at the vermiculite mine in Libby and later died of cancer. He told us workers

would bring the vermiculite home and use it as insulation in their walls and Grace would donate it to be used as fill for the Little League baseball fields. I've had a life long mistrust of big corporations, especially ones who have no connection to the local community other than resource extraction.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Same thing was happening with their plant in

Northeast Minneapolis which was a Vermiculite Processing Plant. Hundreds of Lawns as well as Driveways had to be dug up and replaced. Most of the soil had to be removed too about 3 inches in order to capture all the Asbestos Fibers.

[montanacowboy]

4. Lived there from late 60's

to 1987. Downwind of that plant. Hell half the town died from the asbestos. My son-in-law cleaned up almost all the properties in town and now has signs of asbestos. Most of his relatives died of the disease. I am on a program where I go through a myriad of tests every several years and it's distressing to see the Feds hand this off to the State. They will never be able to pay for the costs associated with all the health care follow up necessary as this is a long, long term disease and doesn't manifest itself for years and years.