Libby Bar Gets Accelerated Asbestos Cleanup

Libby, Mont. - For decades, tbahe chemical company giant W. R. Grace mined vermiculite asbestos from its Zonolite Mountain mine in Lincoln County, and as a result, the entire nearby town of Libby was thoroughly contaminated with asbestos-a known cancer-causing agent. As a result of Grace's corporate misbehaviors, Libby was designated as an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site in 2002. Grace has been in and out of court for years over its alleged civil and criminal violations of law relating to its asbestos operations, and it has already contributed over $250 million to the cleanup efforts. Today, seven years after the Superfund declaration, the asbestos abatement efforts in Libby continue.

The EPA began its Libby operations by conducting thousands of asbestos surveys of homes and businesses in the mining town, studies that were subsequently relied on to develop a "triage" approach to the cleanup-the entire town seemed to be contaminated with asbestos, and a "worst-first" project schedule had been adopted. In Libby, Montana, vermiculite asbestos was everywhere.

Seven years after the asbestos surveys had begun, Sandy Doubek was wondering when the EPA was going to get around to inspecting her popular lounge, the Pastime Bar. Doubek received a written notification from the EPA in 2004, wherein she was notified of the government agency's intent to identify and subsequently remove all traces of asbestos from her business establishment, but, five years later, the EPA cleanup crews remained fully occupied elsewhere.

When Doubek recently considered selling her bar, a potential buyer requested written proof that the building was asbestos free. This request prompted Doubek to contact the EPA to inspect a white dust that had been routinely falling from her ceiling, dust that she would daily sweep from her barroom floor. Subsequent tests on the dust confirmed that it contained vermiculite asbestos.

Once used in a wide variety of manufactured products such as automobile brake pads and a broad assortment of building materials, asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that can be found in the soil or in exposed outcroppings. Common to countries around the world, asbestos exists in numerous chemical compositions, colors, and types-all of which have been determined to pose a risk to human health.

Asbestos was largely banned in many countries around the world after it was learned in the early 70s that microscopic, airborne asbestos fibers could be inhaled into the lungs, where they could remain for up to 50 years before finally causing the onset of serious respiratory ailments such as the dreaded killer, malignant mesothelioma, an aggressive and incurable form of cancer. No safe level of exposure to asbestos has ever been established, and now Doubek reports to the EPA that she had been sweeping asbestos contaminated dust off the floor of her bar with a broom.

"I'd lived with it that way for five years," Doubek said, referring to the vermiculite asbestos on her floor, "I just swept it up." Needless to say, once the significant asbestos contamination at the Pastime Bar had been identified, the EPA quickly moved the popular establishment to the top of its cleanup list. "They decided it needed to be done, and it needed to be done right away," said Doubek.

EPA's Libby site manager, Mike Cirian, said about the bar, "Stuff was trickling out of the ceiling and falling out of the walls." Clearly, conditions at the bar were unacceptable for any occupied structure, much less a popular watering hole for Libby's thirsty residents, Cleanup efforts commenced, and the establishment was tested to be asbestos free approximately one month later. One can only speculate why Doubek, whose business was in a town famous for asbestos contamination, waited so long before finally having the white dust on her floor tested for the presence of the extremely hazardous material.

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