Asbestos Tests To Begin Next Week In Libby Nearly 2,000 Signed Up For Screening Program

Fri., June 30, 2000

By Susan Drumheller susand@spokesman.com

Beginning next week, more than 3,000 people are expected to be tested in Libby, Mont., for asbestos-related diseases.

Those affected have been exposed to asbestos from the operations of a vermiculite mine near Libby that’s now closed. So far, nearly 2,000 Libby residents have signed up for the screening program.

The testing facility is being operated by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a federal agency charged with investigating medical problems resulting from hazardous wastes.

The agency constructed a new building adjacent to the local hospital specifically for the medical screening.

In the fall of 1999, the Environmental Protection Agency and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., requested the assistance of the ATSDR in Libby, where hundreds of residents have become sick or died from asbestos exposure.

The EPA began testing household asbestos levels and soils around Libby in December 1999. Now, residents are worried about vermiculite insulation in their homes, but officials are afraid that if they remove it, it could produce a health hazard.

City officials have discussed a citywide ban on vermiculite insulation removal by homeowners.

Meanwhile, the EPA has ordered the former owners of the mine, W.R. Grace, to clean up its former export plant, which is now a nursery. Approximately 48,000 trees at the nursery cannot be sold because they are growing in contaminated soil. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has proposed that they be used to replant the mine site.

Under Superfund, the EPA also is removing the former Grace screening plant on a 21-acre parcel near the river. All buildings are to be demolished and up to 18 inches of soil will be removed.

People with the highest exposure to the asbestostainted vermiculite were mine workers and their families.

They are eligible for medical testing as is anyone who lived, worked, played or went to school in the Libby area for at least six months prior to Dec. 31, 1990.

Tests will consist of chest x-rays and lung function tests. Participants will be notified of test results by letter about three months after the test, or earlier if an immediate health problem is discovered.

For more information about testing, call the Libby EPA Information Center at (406) 293-6194.

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