Monday, February 07, 2005

"Frivolous Asbestos Claims"

Frivolity:

W.R. Grace and Co. and seven high-ranking employees knew a Montana mine was releasing cancer-causing asbestos into the air and tried to hide the danger to workers and townspeople, according to a federal indictment unsealed Monday. More than 1,200 people became ill, and some of them died, prosecutors said.

The asbestos was naturally present in a vermiculite mine operated by Grace in the small town of Libby for nearly 30 years.

The federal grand jury said that top Grace executives and managers kept secret numerous studies spelling out the risk the cancer-causing asbestos posed to its customers, employees and Libby residents.

...


The company, knowing of the dangers from its product, provided vermiculite for a junior high school running track and as a base for an ice rink, the indictment said. It said Grace also sold or leased some of its contaminated properties to local residents for homes and businesses, for baseball fields and for city use.

When the EPA arrived in 1999, company officials lied about providing vermiculite insulation to local residents for their homes and businesses and failed to reveal the vermiculite was used on the school's running track, the Justice Department said.

As late as April 2002, in response to the EPA declaring a public health emergency in Libby, the company still insisted its vermiculite was not a risk to the environment and human health, the indictment said.