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Hearing to look at EPA in Libby
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

LIBBY - Congress is virtually visiting asbestos-polluted Libby on Thursday, hoping to determine why federal officials did not declare a public health emergency there back in 2002.

Had the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made that declaration, Max Baucus said, more money would have been available for asbestos cleanup, as well as for health screenings and long-term medical care.

Baucus, Montana's ranking Senate Democrat, has in the past blasted Bush administration appointees for not giving Libby the emergency status, saying he had uncovered what he believed was “evidence to show that there was outside influence.”

Namely, Baucus said, he suspected pressure from the White House to scuttle a public health declaration, because an official public health emergency would have cost the government and industry millions.

Baucus made that claim in August 2007 while visiting Libby with Steven Johnson, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency. Johnson denied political interference, saying the EPA had simply found better ways to do the cleanup.

Since then, however, continued contamination of sites previously thought clean has raised questions, and the EPA has come under renewed fire. In addition, a state-sponsored public health study is now complete, leaving many residents to look elsewhere for regular asbestos health screenings.

Amid this uncertainty, Baucus announced he will hold a Senate hearing Thursday morning aimed at answering why EPA refused to make that emergency declaration back in 2002.

As early as 1999, investigative news reports linked widespread death and illness with a defunct Libby vermiculite mine, operated by W.R. Grace and Co. In digging up the vermiculite, miners also unearthed toxic asbestos fibers, which caused lung disease as they spread through the community.

The town was named a national Superfund site in 2002, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reports that residents there suffer asbestos-related health problems at a rate 40 to 60 times the national average. ATSDR also concludes that Libby residents contract rare asbestos-related cancer at a rate 100 times the national average.

Since news of the contamination was made public, nearly a decade and untold millions of taxpayers dollars have passed in Libby, with no clear understanding of how safe, or hazardous, the town remains.

In 2002, Baucus said, then-EPA boss Christie Whitman was strongly considering a public health emergency declaration for Libby, which would have made the town a top priority for cleanup and health care.

All three Lincoln County commissioners have testified that Whitman told them with certainty the declaration would be made, but that once she returned to Washington the matter was dropped.

Since May 2007, Baucus has been asking EPA for documents relative to that decision, specifically any contacts between the White House, W.R. Grace and

EPA. At one point, the senator threatened to subpoena the documents if EPA did not comply.

“I want to know what the heck happened here,” Baucus said last summer during a meeting in Libby. “The fact of the matter is a public health emergency should have been declared in 2002. I want to know who decided not to and why.”

That, in fact, is precisely what he hopes to discuss at this week's Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, titled “Oversight Hearing on EPA's Cleanup of the Superfund Site in Libby, Montana.”

Witnesses will include both EPA officials and experts from Libby.

Baucus is a senior member and former chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over EPA.

The hearing is set for 8 a.m. Montana time, and will be held in the Senate Dirksen Building. Transcripts will be made available following the hearing, and the event will be broadcast live at epw.senate.gov.

Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com.
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CyrF wrote on Sep 24, 2008 7:07 AM:

" The vermiculate plant is a diversion from what should be the real focus in Libby - amphibole type asbestos ("Libby-amphibole") which is naturally occurring in the soils there, and thus posing risks to people who live in the general area. (Amphibole asbestos was used on ships and insulation, for example, but not in auto brakes, which used a different mineral also called "asbestos". Navy vets and insulators have experienced epidemic incidence of mesotheliomas, but auto mechanics haven't.) Studies have found that amphiboles in Libby-area soils are made airborne simply by felling trees in the area. The real danger is that the plaintiff-lawyer driven need to blame a company from which money can be obtained (here the W.R. Grace settlement trust), will divert attention from the wider public health hazard in and around Libby, which was not caused by factory operations. The same is true in El Dorado Hills, California, for example, where development where the soils also contain amphiboles foretells an epidemic in a few decades: digging foundations, sliding into third base, playing the dirt, in the fields in El Dorado Hills, CA, and in Libby, Montana, will increase the risk of mesothelioma. That won't be W. R. Grace's fault, so the asbestos plaintiff's bar, which is a tight and politically well-connected group, is not motivated to point that out, because there's no money in it. "

Mike Crill wrote on Sep 27, 2008 10:25 PM:

" Oh but we in Libby can and do put the blame on WR Grace first and all the others followed.WR Grace and their followers ain't left Libby and neither has the lies and exposure and death to innocent people moving into Libby being told Libby is safe.Murderous lies...How bout some criminal action against these people getting away with murder?How many more have to suffer and die?I lost count after a million... "

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