For decades, mine dust has been killing people in Libby, Montana. Why didn’t anyone do anything about it?

FEATURE ARTICLE - March 13, 2000
Libby’s dark secret
by Mark Matthews

LIBBY, Mont. - For years, this mountain town in northwest Montana held a dark secret close to its breast. Tucked away near the Idaho border, 70 miles from the Canadian line, Libby is a utilitarian town. Four busy lanes of Highway 2, the main thoroughfare from Spokane to Glacier National Park and to the ski resort at Big Mountain, cut through its center. Libby was founded to accommodate the Great Northern Railroad, and its streets run perpendicular to the depot. Beyond the railroad tracks, the wild Kootenai River marks the town’s northern border.

An occasional logging truck still rumbles down Main Street on its way to mills in Whitefish and Columbia Falls... (Read More)

The high court upholds the EPA's claim that W.R. Grace must clean up a Montana mine site.


SEATTLE — The Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand lower court rulings that require W.R. Grace & Co. to pay a $54.5-million federal bill for asbestos cleanup in a Montana mining town described by federal regulators as one of the nation's most contaminated Superfund sites.

The court rejected Grace's appeal of a decision in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency, which sued Grace five years ago to recover the cleanup costs at a vermiculite mine in the town of Libby. The government is also pursuing a criminal case involving several former executives or managers of the mining company for allegedly concealing health risks at the mine.

That trial will not begin until next year at the earliest.

The asbestos-laden vermiculite, laced into the mountains around Libby, was used as insulation in hundreds of thousands of homes and office buildings...(Read More)