UM Grace Case

Robert Locke continued testimony after morning break and explained several memos and handwritten letters he wrote to as well as received from Grace executives in which he expressed his concern over air sampling and animal tests and their results in 1976. The prosecution entered several exhibits into evidence. Only one was not admitted. That potential exhibit was a handwritten memo from Locke to Paul Kahalen, whose job was to keep track of insurance coverage and cases for Grace. One document written to several regional Grace managers listed several tools that Grace thought would reduce the tremolite fiber count in vermiculite from the Libby mine. These tools included dust pick-up kits, constant velocity vent systems and vacuums including a floor sweeper. “Generally we had wrongfully assumed that the Libby Mine and new furnace bag house installation at most other expanding plants would solve the fiber count problem,” according to one document accepted as evidence. While working for Grace, Locke oversaw several tests conducted at a place called the balloon plant.  The plant was an aircraft hangar in Cambridge, Mass., that Grace used to conduct meteorological studies with weather balloons in previous years.  The site had been turned into a sampling arean for testing Libby vermiculite and how it was released into indoor air. “The release of asbestos fiber was not what we previously thought,” Locke said. Locke said that asbestos fibers traveled much farther from a release point than previously thought and the results were something that he “didn’t expect.” Locke said he received status updates on the hamster study while he was employed as special assistant to the vice president.  The hamster study was an effort to determine the lethality of tremolite, though the study has been criticized as being not applicable to humans exposed to airborne tremolite fiber. The hamsters were injected with tremolite mixtures. “I didn’t feel like the results were being as explicit as they could’ve been,” Locke said. Locke said he saw a “train wreck coming” after he saw results of the study. He hand wrote a letter to his boss in order to give him a “heads up” that trouble might be brewing. Locke said that at one point, he considered terminating the tests concerning the hamsters all together. After more than an hour of testimony, Judge Donald Molloy called lunchtime recess before Locke was able to conclude his thoughts on the hamster study.

 – Kelsey Bernius (posted 11:52)