Public Employee Press

Libby, Montana, asbestos victims tour Ground Zero and visit DC 37

By JANE LaTOUR

In the words of reporter Andrew Schneider, Libby Montana is “a town left to die.” Hundreds of workers there mined and milled asbestos for the town’s main employer, W. R. Grace & Co. The deadly mineral filled their lungs and contaminated the work clothes their wives washed with the family laundry.

Libby residents lined their houses with asbestos insulation as their children played in lots laden with the deadly dust. In 1956, Grace and the Montana Board of Health knew about deadly effects of the asbestos. Nobody told the workers. In 1965, when the company doctor X-rayed their lungs, 92 percent were diseased. The company said nothing.

Schneider told the sordid story of Libby in a devastating series for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. Years later the silent killer started taking its toll. Hundreds of miners, family members and residents have died. As people learned what they were breathing, they asked how the company could know of the threat to their lives and do nothing.

Some townspeople traveled to New York City for the April 7 Lincoln Center premier of the film, “Libby, Montana.” On April 6, they toured Ground Zero, where asbestos from Libby had insulated the World Trade Center. Federal assurances of safe air quality near the disaster site rang hollow to the ears of the Libby residents. The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health organized the tour, which included DC 37’s memorial to members who died 9/11.

Libby’s Gayla Benefeld watched her parents die of asbestos disease. At the WTC, she posed question after question to the safety specialists present, including DC 37 Safety Director Lee Clarke. She showed the persistence she brought to uncovering the corporate malfeasance of the Grace mega-corporation. After Libby residents sued the company, W.R. Grace conveniently declared bankruptcy.
Les Skramstad and his wife Norita took a detour to 42nd Street to view the imposing building owned by Grace, his former employer. He had to get there in a wheelchair.

“I was pretty steamed,” he said. “It didn’t matter to the company if a bunch of us died, because we were acceptable casualties. We were just a bunch of miners.”