The Story

Libby, Montana, became national news when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer broke the story about hundreds of sick and dying citizens being poisoned by asbestos contamination from the defunct W.R. Grace Co. vermiculite mine. Stories were also written or produced for People, Dateline, MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, and other mainstream media publications and programs. Now that the novelty has worn off, the attention in Libby has turned to cleaning up the town and making it a safe place to live.

One of the most contaminated sites is the old screening plant. Sitting on the banks of the Kootenai River and sandwiched between the river and U.S. Highway 2, the screening plant is where different sizes of vermiculite were sorted for shipping. Since the demise of the mine, the site has been home to a family-run plant nursery.

The disturbed grounds were once baseball fields, where asbestos contaminated dirt nearly ten feet deep was removed.

After testing the location, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency evacuated the family and sealed off the site. Clean-up essentially means removing and replacing several feet of asbestos-contaminated soil and disposing it at the old mine site. Workers garbed in hazardous material protection suits and wearing respirators stand with hoses constantly soaking the ground to suppress dust where digging occurs. Any vehicle leaving the site is washed with high-pressure sprayers to remove any residual dirt.

Similar work is being done at other locations around town. Most important, Libby’s schools have been tested and decontaminated. Waste rock from the mine provided free material that packed well. It was used by the middle school and high school to surface their running tracks. Skating rinks and ball fields were also spread with this material. Although resurfacing the tracks will be done next spring, the EPA has completed the rest of its clean-up at Libby’s schools.

Part of the Libby Miiddle School track had been surfaced with old mine tailings. The track has been decontaminated as part of the Libby cleanup process. Photos by Jeff Barber.

An emergency EPA clean-up of environmental contamination generally lasts about a year and costs $1 to $2 million. Thus far the EPA has spent more than $30 million in the past two years in Libby. New sources of money are needed to complete the job and designation of Libby as a Superfund site is the only answer. Once Superfund status is granted, the EPA takes over full responsibility for the location. The federal government picks up 90% of the cost of clean-up while the State pays only 10%.

MT Governor Martz Uses "Silver Bullet" on Libby

After months of urging, Governor Martz traveled to Libby a week before Christmas 2001 to announce that she was using Montana’s "silver bullet" to cause the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to list Libby as a Superfund site. After the announcement the governor received accolades from the media and others (including some of her most vocal critics in Libby) for doing the right thing. The governor’s actions, while helpful, seemed more like her recent State of the State address: nothing more than a public relations move designed to improve her image.

Passed in 1980, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) is a program that provides federal assistance for the cleanup of toxic waste sites. In order to be eligible for this assistance, a location needs to be placed on the National Priorities List. The listing process involves a thorough evaluation of the location by EPA, including an assessment of the public health risks and the level of contamination. It is a lengthy process and takes considerable time.

Once a site is on the list, EPA can force cleanup of the site to a specific standard and require the owner of the property to pay for the work. In instances where there is no party available to pay for the cleanup or where the cost is disputed, a pot of money is available—the Superfund—to pay for the necessary remedial work, hence the term "Superfund site."

The "silver bullet" is the ability of a state’s governor to short-circuit the evaluation process and add a location to the National Priorities List more quickly. Making the designation happen sooner brings federal assistance into the community quicker. Each state has the ability to do this only once under CERCLA.

MEIC and the citizens of Libby had been badgering Governor Martz for months to use the silver bullet on Libby and jump-start the designation process. Even though the governor dawdled over her decision for nearly a year, it will still be likely to derail any legal actions W.R. Grace Co. might have planned to challenge the designation decision.

EPA had nearly finished the lengthy administrative process that precedes listing a site. If the governor had made her announcement when she was initially asked, it would have saved months of work and Libby would likely already be a Superfund site.

There never was any doubt that Libby would be added to the National Priorities List and become a Superfund site. The governor should have sped that process along last year but she didn’t. Her recent actions are encouraging because they show she may finally be grasping the gravity of the situation in Libby.

Updates

• W.R. GRACE EXECS INDICTED (March 2005)

• LIBBY UPDATE (February 2005)

In the News

• "Human Tragedy in Libby" (Jan. 14, 2006 video on www.missoulian.com)