Former Judge Still Fighting for Minnesota Workers in Asbestos Cases

Pioneer Press

His hair, combed straight back, is whiter and sparser now, and the creases in his face are more pronounced.

But Miles Lord hasn't lost any of his old fire.

At 87, he's still going after Minnesota's steel and taconite industry, just as he did 33 years ago when, as a federal judge, he issued a landmark environmental ruling against the old Reserve Mining Co.

For the better part of a decade, he has pressed authorities about taconite-related health problems and cancer deaths on the Mesabi Iron Range. In telephone calls to reporters, in testimony and talks with state agencies and officials and even in a letter to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislators, he's found plenty to fault.

He has accused the state Health Department of mishandling an investigation into those deaths, criticized the mining and highway industries for using taconite tailings in roadbeds and blamed legislators and state officials for not aggressively seeking answers.

In a highly publicized flurry last month, politicians and state officials traded accusations and apologies over a state Health Department decision to withhold data about 35 more recent asbestos-related cancer cases.

In some ways, they're just catching up with Lord, who has long harbored questions about the work that's been done and who refuses to go away or stay quiet.

"I'm suggesting," Lord said recently, "it's a deliberate evasion of the truth."

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