Personal Injury Law

Asbestos exposure and cancer

By Edward Bills

For more than 20 years, W.R. Grace & Co. operated a vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont., producing bags of puffy white granules that were marketed all over the U.S., perfect for insulating attics and aerating gardens and potting soil.

The trouble was, the vermiculite contained small quantities of asbestos, a cancer-causing fiber that could, even in tiny quantities, fatally lodge itself in the lungs.

The material posed a risk not only to mine workers, but also to those who touched the workers’ clothing or used the high school running track and community ice-skating rink, both built with asbestos-laden mine tailings donated by the company.

That was the Maryland-based chemical company’s “secret,” federal prosecutors alleged Monday as W.R. Grace and five of its former executives went on trial here in a case that environmental law experts describe as the most significant criminal prosecution the U.S. has ever filed against an alleged corporate polluter.

Raw vermiculite from Libby was processed at sites around the country, including several California locations — Newark, Santa Ana, Glendale and Thermal among them. Many of the sites were subsequently found to be contaminated and have become part of the massive wave of lawsuits that forced W.R. Grace into bankruptcy reorganization in 2001. The company last year announced plans to settle the claims.

An estimated 1,200 Libby residents died or developed asbestos-related diseases from the asbestos fibers that permeated nearly every corner of the small town.

Full post as published by Bodily Injury Blog on February 24, 2009 (boomark / email).