Grace knew before they bought the mine in 1963 that there was asbestos there. It was actually a draw. They thought they might be able to find some sort of commercial use, that they might be able to make a product and sell it. And the fibers in Libby turned out to be, not strong enough, and so it was basically just a contaminant.
The company that owned the mine before Grace bought it had begun doing annual x-rays of their workforce and also lung function tests, and this was something that Grace continued year after year after year, so you can look at these memos and basically see the disease progression among, named men. It’s really—it’s very disturbing.
Beginning in the 1970s, there was a toxicity test done on hamsters that compared Libby’s vermiculite, Libby’s asbestos, to other kinds of asbestos, and the Libby part of the study was not published at that time, that showed that Libby’s asbestos was far more virulent than other kinds of asbestos. And on into the ’80s, there were epidemiological studies. So, certainly, it was widely known in ’63, when Grace bought the mine, that asbestos would kill you from asbestosis. The industry was well aware, though it was few years before it was widely known that there was a link to cancer. But by the ’70s, Grace knew even more that its particular product, not just the ore that, the men were exposed to and the folks who lived in Libby, but also this product that went all over the United States and all over the world, was toxic.
One of the defense’s most effective arguments has been, well, the government knew there was asbestos at the mine. People in Libby didn’t know, by the way. The first communication Andrea Peacock came across in my research was 1979. There was some communication between a Mine Safety Health Administration inspector and the union president. But so the people in Libby didn’t know. And what the government didn’t know, neither the federal government or the state, was the degree of toxicity involved.
The EPA, back in 2002, thought they could get the town cleaned up in three years, and that’s obviously not happened. They’re still working through a backlog of properties that need to be cleaned. And then there’s the question of whether or not the cleanup itself has been effective. It’s proven very difficult to get it all out.
Discussion: Tristan Scott, Andrea Peacock, Amy Goodman
Tristan Scott, reporter for the Missoulian. He has been covering the W.R. Grace trial.
Andrea Peacock, independent journalist who has covered Montana politics and western environmental news for several years. She is a former editor of the Missoula Independent and has written for CounterPunch and Mother Jones. She is the author of Libby, Montana: Asbestos and the Deadly Silence of an American Corporation.
– from democracynow.org