Five former mine executives for W.R. Grace & Co. went on trial this week for the asbestos contamination of Libby, Montana, one of the nation’s most notorious environmental disasters, the New York Times reports. The company’s mining of vermiculite wafted asbestos over the town, and at least 200 deaths and thousands of illnesses were blamed on the decades of contamination, the Times reports. Prosecutors allege that the company knew the dust enveloping the town was toxic, but denied it for years. Like 22 other states, Minnesota imported vermiculite from Libby and now has its own chapter of the debacle. This one is around the site of the former Western Mineral Products/W.R. Grace plant in northeast Minneapolis.

“From 1938 to 1989, the W.R. Grace Co. and its predecessor, Western Mineral Products Inc., processed vermiculite ore from Montana into home insulation,” my colleague Tom Meersman reported in September. “The factory gave away asbestos-laced waste for homeowners to use as fill in driveways, yards and gardens.” Terry Thiele, who grew up in the neighborhood, told Meersman that the stuff was used in sandboxes and a baseball infield. He and his family members all have asbestosis and his father died from mesothelioma, a disease linked to asbestos exposure.

From 2000 to 2004, the asbestos-tainted soil was carted away from 268 homes in Minneapolis by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The cost of cleaning up the asbestos from those properties and nearby Gluek Park totaled $14 million by last year.

Should you be so fascinated, you can follow the trial in Montana by tweets from the courtroom.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Businesses in hot water, Corruption, Dangerous products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.