Libby natives at UM prepare, reflect as Grace trial set to begin
University of Montana senior Danielle Bundrock remembers digging through piles of dirt in Libby as a child looking for what she called “gold nuggets” made of a shiny mineral called vermiculite that lay at the economic heart of her small mining community.
The mineral was mined in Libby and shipped around the country to make insulation for houses; it was fertilizer for gardens; it was the foundation of her favorite playground. It was in their baseball mounds, the high school track and the attics and walls of hundreds of homes in Libby.
It was everywhere; but her gold rush didn’t last long.
She soon learned some microscopic fibers from her precious stones were airborne and lodging themselves like small spears in the lungs of the people of Libby. Her nuggets carried tremolite-asbestos, the cause of asbestosis — a fatal, irreversible respiratory disease. Asbestos has killed about 300 people in Libby, according to information from Libby’s Center for Asbestos Related Disease given to PBS in 2007.
Fourteen members of Bundrock’s family have been diagnosed with the disease.
W.R. Grace & Co., the company that owned and operated Libby’s mine, is now facing criminal charges of knowingly endangering lives by hiding the health risks of asbestos.
The trial, the U.S government v. W.R. Grace & Co., begins Monday in Missoula’s U.S. District Court and is being called the most extensive environmental criminal trial in U.S. history. Jury selection began Thursday for the high-profile case that’s been attracting national media attention. Five of Grace’s top executives and managers will face criminal charges in the trial.
Regardless, Bundrock said that even with a guilty verdict, she is doubtful that any amount of retribution could be enough.
Her grandfather and great-uncle worked at Libby’s mine before it was shut down in 1990, and after work they brought the contaminated mine dust home on their clothes.
“I think they were aware of the fact that it was harmful, but they didn’t know the extent, and they sure as hell didn’t know they were taking it home to their wives and children,” Bundrock said. “That’s the part that really killed them.”
The other 12 diagnosed members of Bundrock’s family never worked at the mine.
Her great-uncle Art and grandfather Don both died from asbestosis. Art worked at the mine for 20 years, Don for almost 10 in the 1950s and ’60s.
Despite her family’s tragedy, Bundrock said she never wants to leave Libby — even with the deadly dust. However, she is concerned for her generation, those from her town who are still too young to see the effects of it in their lungs.
“Even if they (those diagnosed with asbestosis) do get some compensation (from Grace), first off – what’s enough?” Bundrock said. “Then, just because that first generation gets compensation, that does nothing for the next generation that hasn’t been diagnosed yet. That’s a whole other issue that it seems they are just trying to sweep under the rug.”
There are 120 students from Lincoln County at UM — most from Libby, Troy and Eureka — according to data from the registrar’s office. Bundrock’s question is also on many of these students’ minds as the trial date approaches.
Cameron Rasmusson, a UM senior from Libby, said the trial has been a common topic of discussion among his roommates who are also from the town.
“In light of the upcoming trial, there is a shared sense of interest or curiosity in that this was something that was a pretty major part of that particular era in our lives, and now it seems to be coming to some kind of climax,” Rasmusson said. “I think there is a shared sense of personal drama in that sense.”
Rasmusson said a lot of people would make excuses for the diagnoses, blaming them largely on smoking tobacco.
“I think people need to own up to the lack of disclosure that they (Grace) were really guilty of,” he added.
Chad Gullingsrud, a 21-year-old Libby native who was a student on campus until May, has a different perspective on the issue.
“I think it’s getting milked big time, but my family isn’t directly affected by it,” he said. He later said that his dad was told by three doctors that a small growth in his lungs is likely asbestosis. He said his father was also a heavy smoker.
“My dad drove a dump truck up there in the mine where the dust was so thick he couldn’t see through it,” Gullingsrud said. He said his father denied reparations from Grace.
“He pretty much told them to fuck themselves,” he said. “He would die before he got a treatment for that.”
George Mercer, a senior Grizzly football player from Libby, said he wants the townspeople to have the opportunity to move on and forget about it.
“I’d say people are just tired of talking about it. They don’t want to talk about it anymore – we just want it to go away,” Mercer said. “I just hope the storm blows over so we can go back to being a town, not a Superfund site.”
But the road back to normalcy hasn’t been an easy one.
The Libby School District’s class sizes have dropped by about 40 percent of what they were in 1990 when few people were aware of the health effects of asbestos. It seems that the “death valley” stigma is still a concern. Families appear to be moving out – not in.
“It’s definitely hurting the population,” said Mike Decker, a UM junior from Libby. “From seventh grade to my junior year, the high school dropped by 250 students or so. It’s drastically changing the town. It’s becoming more of a retirement town than anything.”
Despite the hardships, Bundrock said she believes Libby is up for the challenge of rising from the ashes.
“Libby isn’t a horrible place filled with gloom and death,” she said. “It’s a horrible situation, but there are wonderful things going on there and it’s a great place.”
This story originally ran in the Montana Kaimin on Feb. 24, 2009. Carmen George is a reporter for both the Kaimin and the Grace Case Project.