Flathead Valley News

A Victory for Libby

Long Time Coming: EPA Declares Public Health Emergency in Libby

By Amy Linn, 6-17-09

Lawyers file into the federal courthouse in Missoula for a hearing in the W.R. Grace criminal trial.

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced that a public health emergency exists in Libby, Montana, offering the town an official and long-awaited affirmation of its medical needs due to asbestos contamination from a W.R. Grace vermiculite mine that has sickened thousands of people and left hundreds dead.

The declaration—the first of its kind—was made by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson at a joint press conference with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester. 





The announcement acknowledges the dire medical needs of Libby area residents, who are suffering an epidemic of asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma, a rare cancer, and asbestosis, a scarring of the lungs. Residents die from asbestosis at a rate 40 to 80 times normal, according to government studies.

The public health emergency status paves the way for medical assistance money to arrive in Lincoln County for Libby and nearby Troy. The EPA, in connection with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced it will provide a short-term grant to the area to help provide asbestos-related medical assistance for screening, diagnostic and treatment services. According to HHS, the funds could be available as soon as August.

“This is a great day for Libby,” said Sen. Baucus, D-Mont, according to a statement from his Washington, D.C. office. “This is a town that was poisoned by W.R. Grace, then had to wait year after year as the last administration failed to determine that a Public Health Emergency exists. But today is a new day.”

Asbestos activist Gayla Benefield, speaking from her home in Libby, said the declaration was “a giant step forward for the healing of the community.”

“What it tells the world is that yes, there’s a problem in Libby—that Libby was a town that was left to die,” she said. “But Libby is going to live.”

“This has been a long time coming,” added Benefield, who has spent more than a decade trying to win help for the town and recognition for its plight. Benefield’s parents both died of asbestosis; she herself has the disease. Nearly 30 of her relatives have died of an asbestos-related illness, including an aunt whose funeral Benefield attended last Friday. “My story is no different than anyone’s who’s lived here for years,” she said.

The declaration, Benefield noted, comes nearly 10 years after government cleanup crews first arrived to deal with asbestos contamination in Libby, which has killed as many as 400 people.

By 2002, the EPA had officially named Libby as a Superfund site. That same year, according to Baucus, who has fought for years to win public health emergency status for Libby, the EPA was ready to make just such a declaration. The agency abruptly dropped the idea, however, after it faced opposition from the Bush White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

In 2005, a grand jury indicted Grace and seven former executives for allegedly conspiring to release asbestos-tainted vermiculite in Libby and hiding the dangers from citizens and the government. The chemical company and its executives were all acquitted in May, leaving the town with no hope for legal redemption, and with a large cleanup and health problem still on its hands.

Vermiculite in Libby is naturally contaminated with asbestos that readily flakes into dust and becomes airborne, shedding microscopic fibers that, when inhaled, can cause illness and death years later. Miners at the Grace facility often came home covered in the dust. Many of the people who are now sick had no exposures other than those they suffered by walking in town, doing laundry, fishing, gardening, playing baseball on vermiculite-contaminated ground, or other day-to-day activities.

W.R. Grace & Co. operated the Libby mine and its processing facilities from 1963 until the mine’s closure in 1990. It’s estimated that more than 70 percent of the nation’s supply of vermiculite—used in insulation, fireproofing and potting soil—came from Libby.

According to an announcement from the EPA, this is the first time the agency has taken this kind of action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). The declaration, as the press release puts it, “recognizes the serious impact to the public health from the contamination at Libby and underscores the need for further action and health care for area residents who have been or may be exposed to asbestos. Investigations performed by the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry have found the incidence of occurrence of asbestosis, a lung condition, in the Libby area staggeringly higher than the national average for the period from 1979-1998.”

Here is more from the press release:


“This is a tragic public health situation that has not received the recognition it deserves by the federal government for far too long. We’re making a long-delayed commitment to the people of Libby and Troy. Based on a rigorous re-evaluation of the situation on the ground, we will continue to move aggressively on the cleanup efforts and protect the health of the people,” said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

Said Baucus: “Today is the day that Administrator Jackson did the right thing and made this vital determination. Today is the day that Secretary Sebelius declared that people in Libby will get the health care they need. Today is the day that after years of work we were able to succeed in getting this done ... We will continue to push until Libby has a clean bill of health.”



“This is a long-overdue, common-sense decision that will go a long way for Libby and the thousands of folks who were poisoned there,” said Sen. Tester, D-Mont. “This decision will help make quality health care more accessible and it will open the door to get new resources on the ground. We still have a long way to do right by the folks in Libby. Working together with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency, we’re making very good progress.”



For a comprehensive look at the Grace trial and the asbestos contamination in Libby, the Missoula Independent offers fine work by writer Andrea Peacock, author of the book Libby, Montana: Asbestos and the Deadly Silence of an American Corporation.

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