Suspect Insulation Found At Old Site Environmental Sleuths Probe Former Factory In Spokane

Investigators found suspicious insulation and potentially contaminated soil at a former W.R. Grace & Co. plant in Spokane on Thursday, aided by an ex-worker who says he blew the whistle on the factory 27 years ago.

Marc McIntosh says he complained to state regulators about asbestos problems at the plant in 1973. The operation soon closed, after more than 40 years of converting asbestos-tainted ore from Libby, Mont., into home insulation.

McIntosh and another former worker pointed out potential problem areas to a team from Ecology and Environment Inc. - a contractor for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - during Thursday’s effort. The team took jars of Zonolite attic insulation from one of the Vermiculite Northwest buildings at 1318 N. Maple. They also scraped soil samples from the surrounding grounds.

Both will be tested for asbestos. They could be critical to making the case against Grace for asbestos-contaminated Zonolite insulation the company is believed to have sold to at least a million homeowners and an untold number of businesses across the country, EPA officials said.

Thursday’s work is part of the EPA’s national investigation into Grace’s contamination of more than 200 sites across the country. That includes two in Spokane that Grace says handled vermiculite ore from its Libby mine.

The other Spokane site is in the Spokane Industrial Park. It shows less evidence of contamination, EPA officials said.

That building once housed a fiberglass manufacturing company that Grace says purchased Libby vermiculite. It now is home to a clothing plant.

Grace officials had no comment on Thursday’s testing or allegations former workers made about the plant.

Former workers say Vermiculite Northwest was one of the most productive Zonolite insulation manufacturing plants in the nation.

It was started in the 1930s by Washington businessmen and sold to Grace in 1966. Spokane County now owns the property.

Today it warehouses molds for concrete casket vaults, a tire company’s spares, light bulbs and sewer manholes.

“The sad part is, I think if I hadn’t turned in that one complaint that got the state here (in 1973) no one would know there was asbestos here,” said McIntosh, who worked at Vermiculite Northwest from 1971 to 1973. “They would have gotten away with it.”

Tim Groh, who worked at the plant in the mid-‘60s, was distressed to find most of the grounds that surrounded Vermiculite Northwest are paved over. “They really covered it up good,” Groh said.

McIntosh and other workers first tried to unionize after safety complaints to Grace were ignored. The company retaliated, moving workers who were part of the effort to less desirable shifts, he said.

So McIntosh called the Washington Department of Labor and Industries.

But he thought the problems came from the blocks of pure asbestos he and other workers shredded and added to products, such as acoustical plaster.

Until newspaper reports this year, McIntosh didn’t know the vermiculite they turned into insulation also was contaminated.

And the dust was so heavy that when the loader he was driving occasionally nicked a support beam “it was a blizzard (with) all of the dust raining down.”

Looking back, McIntosh should have been suspicious, he said. Among other things, the plant made certain products at night, so the black smoke rolling out of the stack wouldn’t be obvious, he said.

Labor and Industries found extremely high concentrations of asbestos throughout the plant, fined Grace about $1,000 and ordered changes in the plant, according to an internal company memo. Grace instead closed the operation.

Most other workers say they were never told the vermiculite contained asbestos and were never required to wear respirators or other safety gear.

Some former workers have since died of asbestos-related diseases. Leroy Joireman’s family settled a wrongful death suit against Grace last year.

Joireman bagged insulation at the plant from 1959-61 to earn money to get his teaching degree at Eastern Washington University. He contracted mesothelioma in late 1994 and died 10 months later.

“There’s a little anger that they knew there were hazardous materials and they didn’t tell us,” Groh said. “The more I’m involved in this, the more I have questions.

“Does that mean I’m going to die in a couple of years and Marc (McIntosh) is going to die in 2010?”