Grace Asbestos in the Attic

It’s the stuff of fairy tales to discover unexpected treasures in the attic. In real life, unfortunately, people do find surprises in their attics—and the endings aren’t always happy ones. That’s particularly the case in Canada these days as thousands of residents come to terms with an insulation called Zonolite made by W.R. Grace & Co.

According to a Toronto Star feature story by reporter Jennifer Wells, Zonolite, containing a natural mineral called vermiculite, was poured into an estimated 242,000 homes in Canada. “Easy as pouring popcorn from a bag,” ads once said about the product, Wells writes.

Power in the West

Big public utilities these days are turning to the wilderness to produce power—on streams that are so remote, hardly anyone complains, according to a fine Wall Street Journal story by Jim Carlton.

The article kicks off with news about how the Snohomish County Public Utility District (from the area north of Seattle) is building a small hydroelectric-power plant on “picture-perfect” Youngs Creek in the Cascades foothills—with little opposition.

According to the story: “So-called small hydro plants like Youngs Creek are sprouting up across the country, with around 500 potential sites identified by a federal study in Washington state alone.”

Wilderness Bill Analysis

I’ve been holding off writing anything about Senator John Tester’s Forest Jobs bill for a while. I’ve talked to many people, both supporters of Tester’s bill and those who have many questions about its implications. As most people in Montana know, Senator Tester combined three different logging/wilderness proposals formulated by collaborative efforts affecting all or portions of the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest, Seeley Lake District of the Lolo National Forest, and Three Rivers Ranger District Kootenai National Forest into one bill that will designate wilderness areas. But the bill also mandates a minimum acreage for logging, new ORV and mountain bike trails, plus some other tax payer supported goodies like the specific subsidy of a biomass plant for Pyramid Lumber in Seeley Lake. He then added some twists of his own.

Unlike some of my friends and associates, I do believe there are some good things in Tester’s legislation and other things that I could live with if there were some modification of the bill’s language.
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Profile: A Conservationist's Legacy

In 2005, the Missoula Board of County Commissioners appointed 18 rural landowners to the Open Lands Working Group, a new committee to help preserve rural Montana traditions, conserve open space and protect treasured landscapes from unwise development.

The members were asked to go to the areas of the county they represented and take photos of what was so special about the land. Naturally, they brought back pictures of mountains and meadows, rivers and birds, wildflowers and children, elk and trees –- all of the things Montanans love and want to save for future generations.

But one representative from Grass Valley brought back something different. Every single picture in Jim Cusker’s slideshow featured … irrigation pipes.

“If you just saw Jim’s slideshow, you’d think there was nothing but irrigated land out there,” says Wendy Ninteman, the western director of the Land Trust Alliance who shared the story. “Jim didn’t think there was anything more beautiful than that.”
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W.R. Grace's Eastern Mess

W.R. Grace asbestos cleanups are going on in more places than just Libby, Montana and Spokane, Washington these days.

A story today by Nancy H. Gonter in The Republican, a publication covering Western Massachusetts, says the Environmental Protection Agency will help clean up vermiculite contamination in the dirt around a former W.R. Grace factory in the small city of Easthampton, Mass. The Easthampton plant, in operation from about 1949 to 1989, reportedly received 258,000 tons of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite ore from Libby, Montana. It manufactured Grace's Zonolite attic insulation.
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The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act

The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, landmark legislation introduced last month by Montana Sen. Jon Tester, enjoys strong support from Montanans in nearly all walks of life, according to a new statewide poll.

The poll, conducted in late July by Boulder, Colorado-based Harstad Strategic Research (HSR), found that 7 in 10
Montanans support the new bill, which focuses on job creation, forest management, clean water protections, and issues relating to wilderness and the economy.
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Guest Column

I could have dealt with the pain, but the chocolate fudge Clif bar lodged somewhere mid-sternum made the ascent up Mist Ridge early in the morning the ultimate endurance test.

I should have taken the time this morning to cook my gruel-like instant oatmeal, but the mosquitoes around our campsite were relentless, attacking in wave after tenacious wave, like the Normandy invasion. Both the insect cloud and the presentation of my freeze-dried food dampened any appetite I could have summoned. So I set off to gain 1,000 feet in altitude in a two-mile climb, fortified with what felt like a handball from the gym stuck in my esophagus.

This was day three of a backpack trip in Yellowstone National Park’s (YNP) Pelican Valley, so my pack should have been lighter. Despite its custom fit and the titanium products I was packing, it felt as if I were carrying another person on my back -- giving a piggyback ride to a sadistic imp. [more]

From the Flathead Beacon

The fate of the north shore and a warming lake were two issues attendees were greeted with at the Flathead Lakers annual meeting at Flathead Lake Lodge last week.

More than150 landowners and conservationists honored one of the Flathead’s key attractions and heard testimony to the importance of its continued preservation.

The shallows, wetlands and sloughs found along the north shore of Flathead Lake, between Somers and the Flathead River, provide for a rich ecosystem frequented by more than 200 species of birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a Waterfowl Production Area along 7 miles of shoreline, but speakers at the meeting voiced concern about the surrounding acreage of farmland that remains at risk of encroaching development. [more]

Alternative Energy

Big dollars for green energy -- and for a unique University of Montana program -- arrived this week at the UM Native American Research Laboratory (NARL), considered the only such research facility in the nation for Native college students.

NARL Director Michael Ceballos said the laboratory has received a $300,000 two-year grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a new process that boosts the efficiency of ethanol production. The goal is to perfect an enzyme technology that makes celullosic ethanol -- a high octane, renewable fuel produced from the stalks and stems of plants -- easier to make and cheaper to buy.
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Wolf Warring

An Idaho Fish and Game commissioner told a gathering of Western attorneys general that hunters are so angry about Idaho's wolf population, they will hunt the animals in the state's backcountry this fall -- whether the law allows it or not.

"It will either be a state-authorized one or it will be an illegal one," Commissioner Randy Budge said about the upcoming hunt, according to Idaho Mountain Express staff writer Jason Kauffman.
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