Public alerted to vermiculite attic insulation danger

By Greg Gordon, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Two federal agencies announced nationwide campaigns Wednesday to warn workers and homeowners not to disturb vermiculite attic insulation that could contain deadly asbestos fibers.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health simultaneously acknowledged the potential danger of the asbestos-contaminated insulation that was sold across the country for decades.

Scientists at the EPA and and the NIOSH have urged senior agency officials over the past two years to educate the public about the possible serious health risks posed by the granular insulation, made from tainted Montana ore.

Agency officials acted after completion of a two-year pilot study that sampled the air when the granular insulation was jostled in several attics. Test results showed that, even when the bulk insulation contained no detectable levels of asbestos, disturbing it sent toxic, microscopic fibers airborne.

W.R. Grace & Co., which marketed the insulation under the brand name Zonolite, stopped producing it 19 years ago at plants across the country, including two in Minneapolis. But EPA officials say it was sold into the 1990s and still may be present in the attics and walls of millions of houses and businesses. Because Zonolite was made in northeast Minneapolis, it is believed to have been used widely in the Upper Midwest.

Urgent message
"If there is one message today to get across to everyone, that is: Do not disturb," Assistant EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said at a news conference.

He said that there was no "cause for panic or needless anxiety," but that consumers should make certain the insulation is adequately sealed off from living areas, including guarding against leakage through ceiling lamps and heating vents.

The agency released a brochure warning that children should not be allowed to play in the insulation, that homeowners should avoid storing boxes in a way that would disturb the vermiculite and that only certified professionals should be allowed to remove it.

Similarly, NIOSH issued a fact sheet warning that workers could be exposed to contaminated vermiculite in agricultural and gardening products such as potting mixes, brake shoes and pads. If they identify vermiculite, the agency said, they should follow federal workplace procedures to shield themselves from asbestos exposure.

Members of Congress harshly criticized the EPA's delays in taking action in recent months - delays that Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., assailed again Wednesday. It takes years - usually decades - for people to show symptoms of asbestos illnesses.

"It's an environmental weapon of mass destruction that we've allowed, like a time bomb, to continue to emit its poison and destroy lives and families and cause indescribable suffering," he said.

"For the federal government to have failed is disgraceful and immoral."

Getting the word out
The calls for action intensified over the past three years as public health officials tracked hundreds of asbestos illnesses and deaths among workers and residents of Libby, Mont., where the contaminated vermiculite was mined.

In Minneapolis, the vermiculite has been blamed for the asbestos-related illnesses and deaths of scores of Grace employees and neighborhood residents.

Johnson, who is chief of the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, said: "We are beginning to put an end to the legacy of Libby, Montana - the mining of vermiculite contaminated with asbestos."

Besides circulating a color brochure to major hardware chains, the EPA said it has set up a national toll-free hot line for concerned homeowners. NIOSH spokesman Fred Blosser said the agency would circulate its fact sheet to occupational safety professionals and is seeking ways to reach small businesses and tradespeople nationwide.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who is sponsoring legislation to ban all products containing asbestos, had alleged that the White House Office of Management and Budget blocked EPA Administrator Christie Whitman from launching the campaign a year ago. Administration officials denied the allegation.

Apparently by coincidence, the announcement was made on the same day that Whitman tendered her resignation to the White House so she can spend more time with her family.

Murray called the vermiculite education effort "an important step forward" that would never have happened without Whitman's "personal concern for asbestos."

'Just despicable'
Grace, which bought the Libby mine in 1963 and operated it until 1990, has never conceded that the insulation poses serious health risks.

The company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2001 because of soaring asbestos injury claims, said in a statement Wednesday that people with vermiculite in their homes should not be alarmed.

"None of the information released today by EPA changes our view, based on reliable scientific evidence, that [the vermiculite insulation] does not pose an undue risk to homeowners and their families."

But in court cases in Minnesota and Missouri, the company has compensated two men terminally ill with mesothelioma, a fast-moving cancer of the lining of the lungs, whose only known exposure was to attic insulation.

Internal company memos have shown that Grace executives knew in the 1970s that Zonolite contained asbestos, but they worried that sales would drop if the government required an asbestos warning label.

Referring to one such memo, Dayton said: "The fact that companies viewed their profits as more important than the lives of their customers, I think, is just despicable."

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