UM Grace Case

 The prosecution continued its examination of witnesses this afternoon, calling to the stand current and former Libby residents familiar with the Libby vermiculite, the accompanying dust and the diseases it causes.

Cameron Foote worked at the lumber mill in Libby and has been diagnosed with asbestosis. Although Foote was exposed to vermiculite dust at the lumber mill, he was also exposed to it at the Libby baseball fields, which were near the Grace export plant. Piles of vermiculite were all over the place, Foote said. Trucks could be seen dumping the ore not only into bins at the export plant, but into piles around the ball fields.

“We just loved to play in it,” he said. “It was kind of neat. I didn’t see any danger in it.”

 Foote was not the only one in his family to use the Libby baseball fields. In 2004 and 2005, he coached his daughter on the same fields. He “was down there every day,” he said, among the piles of nearby ore, the dust in the dugouts and where the vermiculite was “worked into the field between third base and home.”

Vernon Riley, the next witness,  also worked at the Libby lumber mill. During his 27 years of employment there, Riley said he  was exposed to asbestos. His wife, a lifelong Libby resident who never worked at any mill or mine in Libby, was also exposed to asbestos and died of mesothelioma in 1998.

Riley said his brother was a foreman at the Grace mine and often came to Riley’s house after work “covered in dust.” And while Judge Molloy reaffirmed that dust within people’s homes doesn’t qualify as dust in the ambient air — which means exposure there may not violate the Clean Air Act — Riley believes that is where he and his wife were exposed to asbestos.

“My house was full of it,” he said. “The attic was plumb full of it.”

Wendy Challinor said she never  worked in a dusty environment, but she lived in one everyday, from when she moved to Libby when she was two years old until she moved away after high school. Challinor said from the witness stand that her stepfather was a foreman for W.R. Grace, and like Riley’s brother, came home from the mine dusty. Challinor also thinks she was exposed through everyday activities — she ran track at the high school and frequented areas near the mine to socialize and attend parties. The vermiculite, she said, was everywhere and at times was even a diversion.

“We put it in our mouth,” she said, unaware of the health threat posed by the ubiquitous mineral. She has since been diagnosed with pleural hardening and thickening.

Mike Nelson, the witness following Challinor, may have attended some of the same parties Challinor did. He also collected firewood near the mine and went hunting with his father there, where he remembers seeing trees covered dust, he said. Nelson, also like Challinor, has been diagnosed with pleural plaque and gets short of breath easily. While Nelson never worked at the mine, he worked in Libby as a general laborer and believes he was exposed, like everyone else in the community, he said, through contaminated outdoor air.

 – Will Grant, edited 2/25/09