EPA declares asbestos emergency in town

The Environmental Protection Agency for the first time has declared a public health emergency in a contaminated community, targeting a Montana town Wednesday for immediate federal attention.

The declaration by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson involving Libby, Mont., will not result in an evacuation, but will require an extensive cleanup and better health protections for residents with asbestos-related illnesses.

Jackson called Libby a “tragic public health situation” that has not received the recognition it deserves from the federal government for far too long.

Asbestos contamination from a now-closed vermiculite operations near Libby has been cited in the deaths of more than 200 people and illnesses of thousands more. The vermiculite was used to make asbestos insulation material.

Miners carried asbestos home on their clothes, vermiculite once covered school running tracks in Libby and some residents used vermiculite as mulch in their home gardens.

The operations produced 70 percent of all vermiculite sold in the U.S. before they were closed in 1990 by owner W.R. Grace. Federal cleanup began in 2000 and the area was declared a Superfund priority in 2002.

W.R. Grace last year settled a lawsuit over the cleanup, agreeing to pay the U.S. government $250 million. The EPA has estimated the total cleanup and medical care cost could reach $350 million.

Last month, a jury acquitted three former W.R. Grace executives of knowingly allowing residents to be exposed to asbestos-related disease.

Jackson said the public health emergency declaration was the first time the EPA has made such a determination under authority of the 1980 Superfund law that requires the clean up of contaminated sites.

Investigations performed by the federal Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry have found that occurrences of asbestosis, a lung condition, near Libby are staggeringly higher than the national average for the period from 1979 to 1998, the EPA said in a press release.

“While EPA’s cleanup efforts have greatly reduced exposure, actual and potential releases of amphibole asbestos remain a significant threat to public health in that area,” it added.

The EPA is working with the Department of Health and Human Services, which is making available a $6 million grant to provide asbestos-related medical care to Libby and residents of Troy, another Montana town.