Attention Paid
Neglected Libby Gets Government Notice, and Needed Money, at Last
Millions of dollars are slated to arrive in the Libby area for medical care and cleanup efforts. Even more will be needed in the future.
By Amy Linn, 6-19-09
Details and relief are arriving in Libby in the wake of the the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision this week to declare the town a federal public health emergency, paving the way for millions of dollars of long-needed health and cleanup funds to arrive.
The federal government has announced that $6 million will go to Lincoln County health authorities to help Libby and Troy residents get medical care for asbestos-related illnesses such as asbestosis, a scarring of the lungs, and mesothelioma, a lethal cancer. Libby area residents who never worked in the Grace mine, including children, are suffering from those diseases at staggeringly high rates, government studies show.
In addition, the EPA will give at least $125 million to boost ongoing cleanup efforts, according to an AP report in the Flathead Beacon. The money will be used “to speed the work of going door-to-door, raising tents over contaminated homes, removing contaminated soil and vacuuming out attics and any other surface once contaminated by miners returning from work,” reporter Nicholas Geranios writes.
Of the estimated 1,200 people in Libby who have asbestos-related lung problems, about 70 percent of them never worked at the mine or related facilities, according to the government.
Instead, residents inhaled asbestos fibers during everyday activities, stirring it up when they swept the floor, played in ball parks, jogged on the high school running track, or simply did the wash—since Grace allowed employees to go home covered in asbestos dust.
The legacy of the exposures will be felt for years to come, as there is often a long latency period before illnesses appear.
The EPA first arrived in Libby in November 1999 after Seattle Post Intelligencer reporter Andrew Schneider broke the story about widespread contamination from asbestos-laced vermiculite, mined and processed by Grace from 1963 to 1990. The vermiculite—donated by Grace to local schools and residents by the truck-full— has been found nearly everywhere, from homes and businesses to parks, streets and gardens.
In 2005, a federal grand jury indicted Grace and seven former top executives for knowingly endangering Libby residents, charging the company and its managers with a criminal conspiracy that included Clean Air Act violations and obstruction of justice. After an 11-week trial, jurors on May 8 found Grace and three former executives not guilty on all charges.
Charges against two other executives were dropped near the end of the trial, before the verdict was reached. A sixth defendant died in 2007. On June 16, federal prosecutors dismissed all charges against the final defendant, former Grace legal counsel O. Mario Favorito, who had been slated to go on trial in September.
For more about healthcare worries in Libby, click here. For a blow-by-blow of the W.R. Grace trial, click here.
[End of article]Again, the death horse rides again in Libby Mt as another 10 years and over hundred million for what??? To clean Libby right? How does one plan to do that?First off, the trees within a 20 mile radius are full of asbestos.One test by U of M found 530 Million asbestos fibers in ONE GRAM of bark.I can tell you with out a dought that one gram of bark will kill alot of people.Imagine how many deadly fibers are in ONE TREE?? This is a issue that can not be ignored and yet EPA/Libby are not doing anything about the trees.Again a dead horse.Both banks of the Kootenai River are full of asbestos all the way to Bonner Ferry Idaho.This is a issue that can not be ignored.And then the Rail Road route out of Libby HAS to be a issue because all routes out of Libby left a trail of sickness till death.Again another dead horse.SO,What to do, what to do...FIRST declare Libby as unsafe to anything that breathe.The truth.Put a freeze on any one moving to Libby.I suggest Libby and Troy be shut down to all human habitat until Libby and Troy are made safe.Because they can not be made safe WITHOUT resolving the above issues first.Give all those millions to the people of Libby who want and need to leave Libby but can't.Those who decide to stay and die in Libby, thats fine but it is wrong and criminal to allow people into a environment that will kill you.Libby IS such a environment and Libby continues to kill more and more people/families by the lies they are being told that Libby is safe.This is a deadly lie.Plus I can assure you that ALL who come to Libby to work on the clean up WILL leave Libby with a death sentence from everyday exposure to this asbestos fiber.EVERYONE.This dead town is not worth the pain and suffering till death to all who breathe it's deadly air.How does one clean up deadly air..in Libby Mt??? You can't so you have to keep the people away for their own protection and life.Libby Mt has killed enough people and someone has to stop this.I was hoping the Health Emergency would do this but instead it's the same old shit,beat that dead horse to death and get rich doing so.THIS is what has become of Libby.A Multi million dollar screwing off of the people and town that is dying.The sick and dying haven't seen a dime as they die with nothing and the dead horse lives on.I just have to wonder who out there will stop this holocaust that continues in Libby Mt.I say stay away from Libby Mt.This is what the Health Emergency should of said. No one protected and millions for nothing...Where did we as a people go wrong in allowing us to be killed when it should of never happened? Let Libby die....it is already dead.
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