Asbestos is a group of natural minerals that occur as masses of long, silky fibers. Asbestos is nonflammable and is resistant to heat, corrosion and chemicals. Asbestos may break into a dust of tiny fibers that can float into the air and be inhaled or swallowed. 

If you can crush the asbestos fibers in your hand, they are call “friable fibers.”   Friable fibers are BAD news for human health.

Asbestos was once extensively used by the construction industry as insulation. It was also used in a variety of consumer products. Asbestos may be found in ceilings, wall and pipe coverings, floor tiles, patching and coating materials and a wide variety of cement and wall boards.

Asbestos has also been used in household appliances such as toasters, ovens and heating and cooling systems. Normally, these materials do not present a concern. They become a hazard only when they are damaged and release fibers into the air.

Major health problems associated with asbestos exposure are:

• Lung cancer
• Asbestosis (a noncancerous lung disease)
• Mesothelioma (a cancer of the chest and abdominal lining)

Some medical studies have suggested that exposure to asbestos is also responsible for some cancers of internal organs including esophagus, larynx, oral cavity, stomach, colon and kidney.  In short, asbestos is a carcinogen and may be deadly to persons exposed to friable asbestos fibers.

A jury near Libby, Montana has recently acquitted W.R. Grace & Company and three of its former executives of knowingly exposing mine workers and Libby residents to asbestos. After deliberating one full day, jurors returned not guilty verdicts in the W.R. Grace & Co. trial on Friday, May 8, 2009. 

The jury’s verdict of not guilty ended the largest environmental crimes prosecution in United States history.

Federal prosecutors initially accused W.R. Grace and its executives of exposing Libby’s 100,000 residents to asbestos while operating a vermiculite mine, resulting in more than 200 deaths and nearly 2,000 illnesses.

The government’s indictment alleged that W.R. Grace conspired to “knowingly release” asbestos and tried to hide the dangers of inhaling asbestos fibers from employees and nearby residents.

The indictment also said W.R. Grace tried to “defraud the United States and others by impairing, impeding, and frustrating” the EPA’s investigation of the site in 1999. In all, the 10-count indictment included charges of wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

Apprently, the jury did not find the government’s case compelling after deliberating for one day on the charges.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a federal public health agency has published its Summary Report: Exposure to asbestos-containing vermiculite from Libby, Montana, at 28 processing sites in the United States (Summary Report).  The Summary Report provides a review and analysis of what ATSDR and state health department partners learned during their evaluations of 28 sites that received asbestos-containing vermiculite from the Libby mine.

This report includes information gathered at the former W.R. Grace plant in Wilder, KY.

This report (1) offers valuable information about facilities that exfoliated asbestos-containing vermiculite, (2) identifies groups who experienced exposure to asbestos from these sites, and (3) recommends re-evaluating existing data for former exfoliation sites where residual asbestos may be present.

The report also proposes important public health activities to increase awareness about this type of asbestos exposure.

Download the Summary Report [PDF, 1.96MB]

Download the Summary Report Fact Sheet [PDF, 338KB]

U.S. EPA may be in the midst of changing the basic assumptions in its 1986 risk assessment model for asbestos.  Currently, EPA’s risk assessment model considers all asbestos mineral types and all asbestos fibers greater than five microns in length to be equally capable of causing mesothelioma and lung cancer. 

The model is under intense attack from industry types and insurers, who want to do away with EPA’s assumption that all asbestos fibers greater than five microns in length are dangerous to humans. However, changing underlying assumptions in the model would be a radical change for EPA. Since 1986, EPA’s approach to assessing disease risk from asbestos exposures drew no distinctions among fiber types or fiber sizes.  

Many different kinds of asbestos were used in building materials, paper products, plastics, and other products.  The principal forms of asbestos include chrysotile, crocidolite, amosite, tremolite, actinolite, and anthophyllite. All but chrysotile are classified as amphiboles, which tend to have a thin, needle-like appearance.

Exposure mainly occurs in indoor air where it may be released from asbestos-containing materials.  Effects on the lung are a major health concern from asbestos, as chronic exposure to asbestos in humans via inhalation can result in asbestosis.   

Cancer is also a major concern from asbestos exposure, as inhalation exposure can cause lung cancer and mesothelioma (a rare cancer of the thin membranes lining the abdominal cavity and surrounding internal organs), and possibly gastrointestinal cancers in humans. 

U.S. EPA has classified asbestos as a Group A, known human carcinogen.  Asbestos litigation has swelled in recent years and many companies are facing millions of dollars in potential liability and cleanups. 

If a new risk assessment model for asbestos is approved by EPA, the new model would likely classify chrysotile asbestos as a lower risk of harm than other types of asbestos minerals.  There is really no secret to the underlying rationale for this change.  Chrysotile was the most widely used type of asbestos in the U.S. 

To the skeptical, EPA is under pressure to change a basic assumption in its risk assessment model to reduce the financial risk to defendants in asbestos litigation and cleanup, rather than as a result of new or convincing scientific evidence on the topic.    

We all probably have heard about the asbestos problems plaguing workers of W.R. Grace and the residents of the town of Libby, Montana arising from mining vermiculite ore.  Like you, I did not think the asbestos issues touched upon my local community.  I was just plain wrong.  I went to Covington Holmes High School, which is located across the Licking River from the W.R. Grace site in Wilder, Kentucky.  I also passed this Superfund site on a daily basis going to lawschool at Salmon P. Chase College of Law without knowing about the dangerous manufacturing operations conducted there for 40 years.   

Vermiculite ore was first extracted from Libby, Montana and developed into the multi-use material Zonolite by a local mining engineer in 1919.  In 1963, W. R. Grace acquired the Zonolite Company and marketed the material under a trade name Zonolite.   W.R. Grace hailed Zonolite as a wonder material, especially for insulation.  Zonolite was processed in Wilder, Kentucky for forty years from 1952 until 1992. 

The former W. R. Grace plant is located at 112 North Street in Wilder, Campbell County, Kentucky.  According to U.S. EPA, the former Zonolite manufacturing site was originally owned and operated by the Zonolite Company, and was later purchased by W. R. Grace & Co. in 1960.  

W.R. Grace manufactured vermiculite products at this location from 1960 until the plant closed in December 1995.  U.S. EPA’s investigation found that during the period that W.R. Grace operated the Zonolite facility in Wilder, vermiculite ore from the Libby, Montana mine was used as raw material. This raw material contains high concentrations of asbestos fibers.  U.S. EPA estimates that W.R. Grace buried approximately 35,000-40,000 tons of asbestos-containing waste at the Wilder site.

Vermiculite is a shiny mineral, similar to mica, which pops like popcorn when heated. The puffy product, as light as cork, was once a popular form of building insulation and remains an ingredient in potting soil. Vermiculite itself is harmless: The problem is that the layers of igneous rock where it is found almost always contain asbestos, exposure to which has been definitively linked to several fatal lung diseases for more than 70 years.  The vermiculite deposit outside Libby, Montana is particularly dangerous because it is laced with tremolite, the most toxic form of asbestos.  

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a federal public health agency, considered ways that people could be exposed to asbestos from the former manufacturing plant in Wilder, Kentucky site or ways that people could have been exposed in the past.   ATSDR believes the following groups of individuals may be potential exposure victims:

·         Currently live near the former W.R.Grace plant;

·         Worked at the plant between 1952 and 1992; (The Wilder plant stopped processing asbestos-contaminated vermiculite in 1992.)

·         Lived in a household in which someone worked at the plant between 1952 and 1992; or

·         Lived near the plant for any period between 1952 and 1992.

W. R. Grace & Co. announced an agreement in principle that would settle all present and future asbestos-related personal injury claims. The agreement, reached with the Official Committee of Asbestos Personal Injury Claimants, the Future Claimants Representative and the Official Committee of Equity Security Holders, requires the following assets to be paid into a trust to be established under Section 524(g) of the United States Bankruptcy Code:

·         Cash in the amount of $250 million;

·         Warrants to acquire 10 million shares of Grace common stock at an exercise price of $17.00 per share, expiring one year from the effective date of a plan of reorganization;  

·         Rights to proceeds under Grace’s asbestos-related insurance  coverage;

·         The value of cash and stock under the litigation settlement agreements with Sealed Air Corporation and Fresenius Medical  Care Holdings, Inc.; and

·         Deferred payments at $110 million per year for five years beginning in 2019, and $100 million per year for ten years beginning in 2024; the deferred payments would be obligations of Grace backed by 50.1% of Grace’s common stock to meet the requirements of Section 524(g).

The agreement in principle contemplates the filing of a plan of reorganization and related documents with the Bankruptcy Court. The plan will be subject to approval of its co-proponents, exit financing, and Bankruptcy Court and District Court approvals.