Which is more important: health or money?

To the Editor:

So, Paul Peronard and Co. have decided to hold a "one issue" meeting for public involvement in the superfund cleanup. Paul has recently taken over the CAG, something expressly forbidden when Congress mandated CAGs for public involvement. Congress understood that the EPA would pursue their narrow, personal issues at the expense of the wide scope of the public concerns. Let's look at where we are being led by the EPA.

Peronard's "one issue" of choice is money, specifically the $17 million work plan for next year. Now Mr. Peronard, by law, can't let us decide how he spends his money. There are profiteering laws after all. So Peronard says he will take public comment, but the final decisions are already determined by him, all you have to do is sign them.

There are really only two issues here. Is public health being protected and what does it cost? Peronard wants to focus on the latter because he is failing on the first issue. EPA's actions in Libby are not protective of human health.

I watched W.R. Grace do this 30 years ago. When asked about chest X-rays being a condition of employment, they built skating rinks. When asked why so many workers were sick, they built running tracks at the schools. Questions about asbestos in the mine were answered with donations to the city. Civic leaders crouched down and licked the hand that fed them. It is no different today when EPA is loading the trough.

The mayor has made his choice on these issues. The county commissioners are taking secret, no-bid contracts for activities at the landfill that have created dangerous exposures for the workers and the public.

Fortunately there are laws that cover these actions, Grace executives have been indicted for these same tactics. When the EPA tells us that the contamination at the Export Plant is "clean vermiculite," how does that differ from the "nuisance dust" of Grace fame? Grace executives are indicted for "knowing endangerment" under the Clean Air Act. How does that differ from the county allowing EPA contractors to spread this stuff all over the landfill? Ambient air testing shows Montana Highway 37, where contractors are hauling material to the mine in a manner contrary to law, to have the highest fiber counts in town. Mr. Peronard conveniently leaves Highway 37 off his "Project Priority Matrix."

The Corps of Engineers drops 50,000 cubic yards of contaminated material in the creeks where our children play, despite complaints and EPA hires the Corps to perform a Value Engineering Assessment to determine what went wrong. Contractor's trucks are found to be heavily contaminated when serviced at your local truck repair shop and EPA finally admits that they haven't been properly decontaminated, ever. Mike Crill complains that topsoil used in restorations is contaminated with asbestos and EPA quietly goes to Eureka for their topsoil.

Peronard does not have the authority to limit your comments to one issue. These comments are going to be analyzed by the CAG, and as a CAG member I can assure you that all comments will be addressed. If you want to comment on the damage done to your property by the contractors, submit the comment. Concerns that; the politically-connected benefit disproportionately, that spills are commonplace, that the contract conditions are ignored; that oversight is a joke; and that general public does not have access will be welcomed. The primary function of CAG is to communicate with the public. Feel free to rip up Mr. Peronard's phony comment forms.

I will be searching the comments for evidence to use in the next round of indictments. If Peronard has the audacity to frame the debate on issues of money while disregarding human health, he had better hire a good lawyer. Comments that reflect a lack of oversight will be analyzed to detriment if that lack of oversight jeopardizes health and safety. The contractor's insurance policy will be the next deep pocket mined for health care.

The EPA has a responsibility to ensure that their contractors aren't making millions of dollars at the expense of the local population. I remember Sen. Baucus claiming that the EPA stall tactics on the risk assessment and toxicological studies was "morally and ethically reprehensible." Pretty strong language coming from a U.S. Senator. Paul Peronard scoffed. Either Mr. Peronard was ignorant of the ramifications or, to use language out of the indictments, he is guilty of an "effort to conceal and misrepresent the hazardous nature of vermiculite" contamination arising out of the cleanup. The Senator's clear mandate to the EPA was to "get it right the first time." Delaying the studies not only means some properties will have to be revisited, at great expense, it also means health care costs for everyone exposed by unsafe work practices escalates.

I was perturbed when people claimed they didn't know about the problems here in 1999. Workers claimed that Grace never told them about the dangers at the mine. Politicians claimed it had never been brought to their attention while the lawsuits piled up. The evidence was always in front of us in this regulatory failure.

State officer Dr. Ben Wake brought it up repeatedly in the 1950s and 1960s. EPA had the reports in the 1980s and buried them. Grace required chest X-rays, had a no smoking policy, and workers couldn't connect the dots?

Now, I am telling you that this cleanup is failing in a manner that jeopardizes human health. If the CAG is to function as Congress visualized, the public must be aware of these failures. This meeting and the public comments will direct which of the two concerns we focus on in the future. Health or money?

D.C. Orr

Libby