Obstruction Count VIII
Defense witness William M. Corcoran, Vice President of Public and Regulatory Affairs for W.R. Grace & Co., testified late Thursday morning under the direction of defense attorney Bernick. Corcoran joined W.R. Grace & Co. in 1999 with the responsibility for environmental, health and safety, communications and governmental affairs.
Corcoran wrote an infamous letter, dated April 10, 2002, to Christine Todd Whitman, the then Administrator of the EPA. The Government pulled direct quotations from the letter to use in the indictment, Count VII, Obstruction of Justice against Grace. In 2001-2002, the EPA proposed to declare a federal public health emergency across the United States because of Zonolite Attic Insulation (ZAI). The letter followed a meeting about ZAI between the EPA and Grace. In the letter, Grace recommended that the EPA should not declare a public health emergency because Grace’s independent scientific and statistical data showed little risk—to human health or the environment—from properly installed ZAI.
The indictment, Count VIII, Obstruction of Justice states:
W.R. Grace did corruptly obstruct, impeded, and endeavor to . . . in a letter to the Administrator of the EPA . . . “Grace’s expanded vermiculite, which was used in ZAI, poses no risk to human health or the environment.” “ . . . [ZAI] contains biologically insignificant amounts of respirable asbestos fibers;” “. . . it is reasonable to expect that disturbance of [ZAI] will not result in hazardous levels of airborne asbestos fibers;” and “. . . there is no credible reason to believe that ZAI has ever caused an asbestos-related disease in anyone who has used in his/her home.”
Corcoran testified that Grace’s letter petitioned the Government to make a scientific determination about ZAI. According to Corcoran, the Government has not disproved Grace’s scientific and statistical data. In fact, Bernick introduced a couple of studies that corroborated Grace’s scientific data about ZAI. One example, a NIOSH study, stated that a public health emergency in connection with ZAI was unwarranted. Corcoran stated that W.R. Grace had hoped that the EPA would respond to the content of the letter—but the EPA failed to do so. The EPA ultimately decided not to declare a public health emergency.
Bernick switched back and forth between the letter and the indictment to show that the information in the letter did not corruptly obstruct or impede the Government, but instead recommended a course of action.
— Audrey Schultz (posted 3:10 pm)
Posted: April 30th, 2009 under Law.
Tags: Bernick, Corcoran, obstruction of justice, Schultz, Whitman, ZAI
Comments
Comment from DC Orr
Time April 30, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Terry;
The PHE was to be a legal mechanism for entering peoples homes to remove VAI. It was specific to Libby because of the multiple pathways of exposure coupled with a sensitized community.
EPA could not enter peoples homes to remove a “product” unless there was a PHE. The OMB called meetings with EPA after the press release had been written and EPA subsequently backed off of the PHE and said they could remove VAI because Grace had given away off spec material and that did not constitute a product.
That was a lie and it has caused problems with fragmented authority and funding ever since.
The cleanup in Libby has not gone as well for EPA as this trial.
Sincerely,
DC
Comment from Terry Trent
Time April 30, 2009 at 7:43 pm
DC Orr – I remember quite well because I had dreamed of PHE for Libby before Andrew ever wrote his first story. I dreamed of it because if they grant PHE to Libby at the extremely low levels (relative to Chrysotile in San Francisco for example) of exposure, then they would have to grant PHE to the El Dorado County tremolite areas. Theoretically of course. The very first thing I ever said to a Libby resident in 1999 after the (wake up call??) Schneider story, was “read CERCLA and demand PHE”.
Although the “version” of CERCLA I had said much more than “clean up” or “access to property” (it actually included language that indicated to me that health care should be part of a clean up–Interesting, I think Baucus has the same copy I had!!). One can imagine that such a step is, or darn well should be the military equivalent to Marshall Law, in that diseases, deaths and their causes must be stopped immediately, or at teh very least really darn quick. I imagine EPA’s take on “imminent” as found in CERCLA means, “when we get around to it” when it comes to “asbestos”. Anyway, now that you know them all you must laugh as hard as I do thinking that they would ever be capable of carrying out anything remotely resembling Marshall Law!! They are frozen in the headlights of the public gaze, let alone the awesome responsibility of carrying out the immense work to stop such an epidemic.
You are absolutely correct about what happened. EPA lied about it and thought it was a little tiny lie, who would notice? They are full of these little tiny lies nobody is supposed to notice. Well Baucus has blown up in their face big time because of it, and I am not even certain he knows they lied about that yet? I hope you told him?
Best regards,
Terry
Comment from givens
Time May 1, 2009 at 2:42 am
The difficulties that you both describe pall in comparison to the problems of New York City following 9/11 and if EPA is going clean every nook and cranny of vermiculite – not the problem – the tremolite is – and go to the extent you are arguing for things, then NYC is going to have to be evacuated etc etc. Not likely. The massive exposures to far more than the product but also to mercury, lead, concrete dust, glass etc in this city make the miniscule problems discussed here too ridiculous to go to any of the levels you want to suggest. If the fibers are any where nearly as toxic as suggested by responses to the blog – then everyone in and from Libby should be dead and they most certainly are not. Pleural plaques suggest – not prove – exposure and the existence of plaques does not determine that one will develop asbestos related disease or cancer. Yes, the EPA scares people – they have here – into believing that a huge screening of the population has revealed an unbelievablely large problem, but this screening has never been verified by scientifically controlled study groups of other large populations of a general public. Correlation does not equal causation no matter how badly you want it to.
Comment from givens
Time May 1, 2009 at 3:41 am
May I continue now that my morning coffee is in hand? An EPA researcher told me that the EPA had to use the “existing science available” when declaring NYC as safe to live there. Was Grace suppose to use a crystal science ball to know differently at the time? I suggest that at some point the government did come to the realization that if they proved the case against Grace for long time conspiracy, then they would have to account for the declaring NYC safe at the same time that Libby was not and the word went down to lose the case – a weak one a best but very poorly presented and argued. I suspect that the charges are more projection of the actual conspiracy within EPA to silence the problem because NYC’s issues are legion compared to Libby and other locations around the country. Consider Machaiville’s Morals of the Prince. The government must keep the majority of the people safe at a legitimate tax rate or lose power. In this sense the US government is extremely effective – even if it costs us in ways we do not always like.
Comment from Terry Trent
Time May 1, 2009 at 7:50 am
Givens – Interesting stuff. But I hope we are all taking one toxin at a time. This situation is about “asbestos” , more specifically amphibole mineral fibers, which in reality should not be called “asbestos”. Dust of any kind, flour, peanut hulls, dirt, clay, are all dangerous. They can kill people right away or down the road. UC Davis discovered lung cancers among farmers caused by regular every day farm dust. Suffocation can be irreversible in a, excuse the pun, New York minute, or and Antarctic ice age, when it comes to dusts.
Although much has been made of lead dust poisoning and an entire town was evacuated, moved to never be rebuilt in Oklahoma because of it. The reason this happened, children exhibited a 5 point lower IQ, but not one single person dead. (By the way 5 points of IQ is impossible to measure). Lead is a popular toxin to chase after. Dust, can be deadly no matter what its composition. Anyone thinking that there needed to be “science” to understand what effects an alkali dust would have on human beings in New York, is simply “stupid”. (And yes there was Tremolite present in New York, but almost all of it had been removed from the buildings years earlier, so there was not very much. Had it all remained NY would be in far far worse trouble than you suggest).
But here, we are talking about mineral fibers. Mineral fibers which show the largest death rates among exposures of any known toxins to humans. In some cases exceeding 50% of a given population. With towns in Europe already known to exhibit exactly the same proportions of death and lung disorders as Libby (Metsovo Greece, analyzed and published years before Libby). So, we have never really needed any science at all in Libby to know what was occurring. No matter how EPA phrases it or wants to convince people that toxicity science is required, It isn’t. It would however be nice to do some more toxicity science, but we have no need for it other than to confirm what has already been done. Incidentally, the mesotheliomas will continue in Libby for the greater part of the next 100 years. When it is done, it could reach as high as 10% of the population from just that one disease. So no, all of Libby would not be dead, and we know they will not all be dead from these mineral fibers in the future…..no more than they would all be dead if we simply allowed plaque to spread uncontrolled in Libby. Mineral fibers just do not work that way.
Yes, NY was a big problem from the instant it happened. I recall that EPA took their sweet time showing up. Then they showed up to a gun fight with a pocket knife (excuse the quote). I watched day after day wondering where the heck they were. Still, we are talking about a different animal completely when we get to mineral fibers, and an animal that is insidious. The only reason we can see Libby at all is because it is an isolated population. If this was occurring in Chicago (oh, it is occurring in Chicago, I forgot!!) it would be near invisible to all but the best epidemiologists.
Best regards,
Terry
Comment from Terry Trent
Time April 30, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Am I reading this correctly??! The government wanted to declare a Public Health Emergency for vermiculite insulated homes outside Libby when they didn’t even declare Public Health Emergency for Libby itself?!! There is something terribly terribly wrong here. I suppose Grace stopped them from declaring PHE in Libby as well? Jerks!
TTrent