The Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday that W.R. Grace & Company has agreed to pay a record $250 million to clean up past mining operations in Libby, Montana. The settlement results from asbestos poisoning claims that helped to drive the chemical company into bankruptcy.
History
W.R. Grace & Company began mining and processing vermiculite near Libby in 1963. The operation ended in 1990. Vermiculite is used in insulation and other building materials. The vermiculite in Montana was contaminated with asbestos. It has been proven that asbestos causes lung scarring, lung cancer and mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a form of cancer that causes tumors in the chest and abdomen.
Cleanup in Libby has been ongoing since 2000, but the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001. The company was ordered to pay $54 million in investigative and environmental cleanup costs by a federal court in Montana in 2003, but has not paid due to the bankruptcy proceeding. W.R. Grace and seven senior employees were charged in 2005 with knowingly exposing residents and miners in Libby to asbestos. Over a thousand people have become ill or died as a result of asbestos exposure in Libby. The settlement will be used to clean homes, businesses, and schools exposed to carcinogenic asbestos dust.
Though large companies like W.R. Grace & Company help to employ people in places like Libby, Montana, they also have a responsibility to these employees’ and their families’ health. While mining is not high on the list of the safest jobs you can have, knowing the inherent dangers upfront is part of accepting this type of work. When a company poisons not just the land and their employees, but the families of these employees, the result should be settlements like the one the federal government handed down to W.R. Grace & Company. Though this is too little, too late for many of those affected, perhaps it will stand as yet another marker for those who put profits over people.
If you, or a loved one, have been exposed to a harmful chemical, please contact an injury lawyer with experience in toxic tort litigation.
