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A New Chapter for Libby

By Beacon Staff

LIBBY – It’s hard to move on when it still feels like a knife is shoved in your side. But the powerful opiates help and Dean Herreid knows he doesn’t have a choice.

Like so many others in Libby, Herreid has learned the art of acceptance: accepting his painful asbestosis, accepting his inability to play with his kids because of wheezing fits and, most recently, accepting a federal jury’s verdict acquitting W.R. Grace & Co. of knowingly poisoning scores of people in his town.

A guilty verdict would have at least brought a semblance of closure for Herreid and the many others in Libby who are either stricken with asbestos-related diseases or know people who are. In a town of fewer than 3,000, more than 200 have died and some 2,000 more have been sickened. But the jury made its decision and Herreid says it’s time to begin a new chapter in his life.

The whole town of Libby, he said, needs to start a new chapter – a new legacy, one not rooted in suffering. Or as Mayor Doug Roll says: “We need to get the stigma of the ‘death town’ away from us. It’s been hanging over us for at least nine years.”

A Disappointing but Expected Verdict

On May 8, following a months-long trial, a U.S. District Court jury in Missoula acquitted W.R. Grace & Co. and three former executives on charges that they knowingly exposed Libby residents to tremolite asbestos from the company’s vermiculite mine and then covered it up to continue making profits and avoid liability.

The mine was first opened in 1939 and W.R. Grace purchased it in 1963, keeping it in operation until 1990. Vermiculite, a mineral containing the deadly asbestos, was used predominantly as insulation and fireproofing in millions of homes across the nation. At one point, 80 percent of the world’s vermiculite came from the Grace mine.

Libby’s story has been told countless times over the last decade. Books have been written and documentaries have been produced. Roving journalists became part of everyday life. They were there to tell the story of miners sickened by years of breathing in asbestos-laden dust, of family members who became sick after miners brought it back on their clothes, and of the hundreds of others who fell ill by exposure.

Last month, the government dropped charges against two W.R. Grace executives, William J. McCaig and Robert C. Walsh. The three who were found not guilty on May 8 were Henry A. Eschenbach, Jack W. Wolter and Robert J. Bettacchi. The final defendant, Grace’s in-house lawyer O. Mario Favorito, is scheduled for trial in September.

“People were very disappointed (in the verdict),” said Gayla Benefield, a Libby resident and longtime advocate for asbestos victims. “They look around and their friends are dying and they’re sick too and they know it’s over.”

But the verdict didn’t come as a surprise to many in Libby. Observers saw the trial heading that direction for some time. Citing a legal stipulation called Rule 403, Judge Donald Molloy refused to allow significant amounts of evidence brought forth by the prosecution. The federal rule calls for the “exclusion of relevant evidence on grounds of prejudice, confusion or waste of time.”

David Uhlmann, former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice’s environmental crimes section who now teaches at the University of Michigan, has been quoted in multiple reports as being disappointed that Molloy imposed so many limits.

Herreid carries a copy of Rule 403 in his pocket. Last week, sitting in the theater of Central School where he teaches in Libby, he read the rule out loud, pausing periodically to cough. He apologizes for his coughing, as if it’s his fault, and he recites a common mantra among the tough residents of Libby: “Don’t feel sorry for us. That’s not what we want.”

“We’ve got to get on with life,” Herreid said. “Justice was attempted.”

Herreid’s All Too Familiar Story

As a young boy, Herreid played baseball on a field lined with vermiculite and played near a railroad track that carried the mineral. Vermiculite created a nice, clump-free soil for the infield. Herreid began feeling sharp pains in his side as an adult and underwent multiple screenings before he was diagnosed with asbestosis, a chronic condition that attacks the lungs. His is a familiar story in Libby.

Today Herreid, 44, wears a patch on his side. The patch releases methadone, OxyContin and Lortab into his body to help numb the stinging pain, though it doesn’t eliminate it. He says it “makes it so I can function and I can think.” Herreid also takes a cocktail of drugs for asthmatic symptoms. At the end of each day, he’s exhausted and has difficulty playing with his 8- and 11-year-old kids.

“They’re the ones suffering now because I used to go out and have all kinds of fun with them,” Herreid said. “I’ve gone downhill really bad the last year, year and a half.”

There’s no known cure for Herreid. He tries anything that has even the slightest possibility of helping him. Currently, he’s trying a concoction of whiskey, honey and aloe vera. But he has watched a generation of those sickened before him suffer and pass away without ever having a chance. He doesn’t sugarcoat his future.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out,” Herreid said. “You look at the people ahead of you.”

Shedding the Stigma and Moving On

Logging, the town’s longtime economic staple, is waning as the wood products industry struggles nationwide. The other major employer of the past was the vermiculite mine. Today, Roll said the biggest job providers are government, the hospital and a company called Environmental Restoration. Many people operate small businesses.

Roll sees positives on the horizon. Stinger Welding, an Arizona-based company that makes bridge supports, has plans to open an office to serve its customers in the Northwestern United States. Stinger will provide 25 jobs at first, Roll said, and up to 200 in the future.

“It’s a good thing,” Roll said. “It’s the first time we’ve had that good of a thing come along in a long time.”

Libby also faces the challenge of separating itself from the widely held image of a “death town,” as Roll called it. Rebecca Martin, 15, said she recalls an incident when she was moving with her parents from Arkansas several years ago. Passing through Colorado, she saw a sign that proclaimed: “Don’t let Colorado become the next Libby,” an apparent anti-mining sign. Horror stories about a poison taking over the town didn’t comfort her either.

“I thought people were dying on the streets,” Martin said.

The first order of business in shedding the death stigma, Roll said, is cleaning up the town, which has been labeled a Superfund site. He said in the past the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup process has been “mishandled” and defined by “wasted time.” It’s still in the emergency response stages. The actual cleanup, he said, doesn’t begin until the remedial stage. But he doesn’t advocate hurrying: “Get it done right, not quickly.”

Sen. Jon Tester recently pitched a plan to improve health care for asbestos victims and help with cleanup. And Sen. Max Baucus, calling the Libby tragedy “an outrage,” said he pledges to “keep fighting to make sure they have the resources they need until Libby is given a clean bill of health.”

While the townspeople would like to put the dark days behind them, the asbestos deaths will always be part of their story. Benefield, who lost both of her parents to asbestos-related illness and suffers complications herself, said she hopes Libby will serve as an example of the dangers of unchecked corporations and help prevent similar tragedies in the future. She said: “I think Libby is a really important part of history, really.”

Keeping that sentiment in mind, Benefield, 65, concedes that she’s ready to rest and enjoy life.

“When’s it going to end?” Benefield said. “You can only be angry for so long.”