U.S. knew of asbestos danger

By Andrew Schneider

©2004, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About 24 years ago, federal health investigators learned that a vermiculite processing plant in south St. Louis was spewing potentially lethal asbestos fibers over homes, schools and businesses. The government warned no one.

But that will soon change. The plant, at Manchester and Sulphur avenues, was owned by W.R. Grace and Co. It is one of 750 facilities in North America that processed trainloads of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite ore from a mine in Libby, Mont. About 250 of those plants are scheduled to be evaluated by physicians, epidemiologists and scientists from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and their state partners.

The St. Louis plant, according to the EPA, received more than 200 million pounds of the tainted ore. It is one of 28 plants that received the largest amount of dangerous ore and are at the top of the government's list for examination.

The St. Louis study should be out by March, said state officials working with the federal investigators.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which Congress created to evaluate the risk to public health at Superfund sites and other environmental danger areas, has released five reports already and, with them, a surprising warning.

"Anyone who worked in these plants that processed asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from Libby, Mont., or had family members who worked there, or washed the worker's clothes or lived anywhere nearby, should see a physician knowledgeable about identifying asbestos-related diseases," said Scott Mall, a spokesman for the disease registry. Mall issued the warning after the disease registry released its first round of five evaluations of what are called expansion plants in Illinois, California, Colorado, Maryland and Nebraska.

It's rare to receive warnings this blunt from government agencies, but the public health experts said they believe the potential harm that came from these plants could be significant.

Hundreds of people who lived in that northwestern corner of Montana or who worked at Grace's mine have already died or become incapacitated from exposure to the asbestos that contaminated the vermiculite.

In its largest health screening ever, the disease registry X-rayed and conducted lung function tests on more than 10,000 people who lived in or near Libby or worked at the mine. The results showed that about one-third - more than 3,000 people - have clinical signs of asbestos-caused disease.

"Based on what we know about the toxicity of the Libby ore and what we know about tremolite (asbestos fiber), it's not unreasonable to tell people who worked in the expansion plants around the country and members of their households to have their health evaluated," said Dr. Vikas Kapil, senior medical officer in the disease registry's Division of Health Studies. "They need to know the potential (for illness) is out there."

Many of those on the EPA's front lines agree.

"We know that tremolite fiber in that Libby ore is unusually lethal. We've got the bodies to prove it. I don't think people need to wait for ATSDR to get around to their community to be told to see a doctor. If they worked at one of these plants or lived near one, it would be smart to see a physician now," said Paul Peronard, who led the EPA's emergency response team at Libby.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which has developed a registry of the people in Libby sickened by exposure to tremolite, wants to add the names of all the people who had contact of any kind with the expansion plants.

"With rapid advances being made in the development of new medicine, we could find ourselves within the next few years having a drug which could stop the progression of the asbestos-caused diseases," Kapil said. "A registry of those with clinical signs of the disease might permit us to quickly notify them of the new treatment."

The death and illness from the Montana ore led Congress to urge that the expansion plants be examined by the EPA and the disease registry, and the resulting National Asbestos Exposure Review is doing that.

The expansion plants used high-temperature furnaces to expand or pop the millions of pounds of tainted ore into popcornlike vermiculite. The substance was used in the manufacturing of wall board, fireproofing, concrete aggregates, carriers for fertilizer, plant food, lawn care items, soil conditioners and other horticultural products. But mostly it was used in attic and wall insulation. The federal government believes that between 15 million and 35 million homes and business still contain the toxic insulation, and it warns that the insulation should not be disturbed.

The investigations of the 28 sites are under way, and conclusions are expected to be released within the next few months. At that point, the disease registry will decide what to do with the remaining 222 locations and whether or not it has the money to continue the work.

An EPA report in June 1980 said "workers who mine or process vermiculite from (Libby) are exposed thereby to asbestos levels that present a significant risk of serious asbestos-related disease."

In that report and in others released in 1985 and 1991, EPA investigators estimated that more than 13 million people lived close enough to expansion plants to be exposed to some level of asbestos. In reality, the population actually exposed to asbestos levels that could cause disease is far lower, with some health authorities estimating that fewer than 300,000 people nationwide lived within a mile of the plants when they operated.

The vermiculite expansion plant most thoroughly studied by those doing the EPA reports was the Grace St. Louis facility.

The investigators examined the quantity of vermiculite being processed, the hours of operation, the number of nearby residents, the amount of asbestos being released into the air and the round-the-clock direction of the wind over the plant. The St. Louis operation was presented by EPA investigators as "a model" for determining potential dangers at other expansion plants.

The St. Louis data from 1980 indicate that there were residents within six-tenths of a mile of the site and that exposure to those individuals was high, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But the EPA never told those residents of the potential danger. Nor did it tell city, county or state officials. There is no indication that the agency even notified Grace, although company documents show that the worldwide chemical and construction products company was well-aware of the contamination spewing from many of its facilities.

The old St. Louis operation is on the disease registry's priority list, and federal and state health investigators examined the site last year. Soil around the location - now the site of L & L Insulation and Supply Co.- was tested for asbestos by the EPA, and only "trace amounts were found," said the agency's Kansas City office.

Jerry Texlor, who runs L&L, said he has been leasing the building for seven years and doesn't use vermiculite. The state said Grace ran the plant from 1966 to 1988.

In half of the 28 priority locations, state health departments are leading the investigations.

"What we're trying to do in our risk assessment is determine the risk to those who worked at the plant and those who lived nearby," said Scott Clardy, who heads the section for Environment Public Health of Missouri's Health Department.

The difficulty faced by Clardy in St. Louis and by the disease registry throughout the rest of the country is that at almost all sites, neither workers at the plant nor those living in the surrounding neighborhoods were aware that asbestos was being released by these operations.

Asbestos-related diseases, which usually take 20 or more years to manifest themselves, are hard to diagnose. Often, they are not considered by physicians unless their patients tell them they had worked with the lethal fibers. Illness and death is often attributed to emphysema, heart disease or other respiratory problems.

"We are trying to identify the employees that worked at the Grace site and those who lived nearby," Clardy said. His people and federal investigators have done a preliminary survey of the couple of hundred neatly kept homes on the low hills above the site.

"We've got some names we're working with and are looking for more. We are trying to identify the people who worked there and lived nearby who are ill or know others who are ill. I hope people call us, because it is important."

Clardy called the investigation "a priority."

The old Grace plant wasn't the only St. Louis operation using the ore from Libby. About a mile east on Manchester, under the viaduct below Kingshighway, is the former site of J.J. Brouk and Co. According to a tally of Grace invoices by the Justice Department and the EPA, 57 million pounds of Libby ore was delivered to the site, which is now out of business. The EPA in Kansas City again said only trace amounts of asbestos were found in the soil tested around the Brouk plant, and the site is not on the disease registry's priority list.