Major law firm working with citizens group

With membership that’s growing daily and legal representation working pro bono, the recently formed Citizens for a Healthy Community and Environmental Justice is working toward two goals – to stop asbestos exposure and to protect private property rights in the cleanup.

“It’s about rights and holding the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) accountable for what they promised when they came to Libby,” said board member Gordon Sullivan. “It’s working within the system to make sure we get a fair delivery on those promises.”

Major national law firm Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell agreed in November to represent the new citizen’s group and the already existing Libby Business and Homeowners Association.

Elizabeth Mack, chair of the environmental section of the firm, and attorney Susan Rainey prepared the groups’ comments on the proposed cleanup of the former export plant and screening plant sites.

Residents are passionate about the health and welfare of their families and the way in which their homes and properties are cleaned of asbestos. The environmental attorneys provide legitimacy to the groups by cutting through the emotion and distilling residents’ concerns into a more digestible form for the EPA, Sullivan said.

“You’re overwhelmed with this passion and that sometimes gets in the way of progress,” he said. “We don’t want to be strictly adversarial to the EPA. It’s helpful to step back and put another set of eyes on it.”

Collaborating with Mack and Rainey to create the groups’ public comments was a learning process for Sullivan.

“They said this is all well and good but let’s get to the stuff that we can intervene on,” Sullivan recalled. “It took a lot of the emotion and, in some cases, the anger out of the discussion and made us focus on some things that are achievable.”

Mack wants to help the groups present a united front to legislators, the EPA and other government agencies.  

“I hope we can bring the voices together and make one voice and have it provide a clear, concise statement,” she said. “… Obviously, any time that you’re dealing with the federal government, if we can distill the voices to a more concise statement, it may help bring an ‘aha’ moment for the EPA, an ‘I get it.’”

Sullivan estimates that two-thirds of the citizen group’s approximately 250 members reside in the Libby area. The remainder is comprised of scientists and those concerned with asbestos exposure in their part of the country. The focus, however, is on Libby. 

The groups are currently surveying people who have had their homes cleaned to learn how the process can be improved.

“We’ll put some numbers to it,” Sullivan said, “but what we’re really searching for is how we can make it better.”

Group members communicate through e-mail and have no regularly scheduled meetings, Sullivan said. 

Mack and Rainey traveled to Libby earlier this month from their Dallas office to meet their clients in person and to speak with other stakeholders, such as the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Libby City Council. The attorneys are now synthesizing the information they collected. 

“We’re condensing what we learned that day and doing some legal research,” Mack said. “We’re putting our thoughts together so we can work with politicians and the EPA on what the issues and legal ramifications are and move forward that way.”

Sullivan is pleased that property owners now have a voice in the process.

“The thing about this whole concept is it’s driven by the people that’s going to be affected by it,” Sullivan said. “This is our town and these are our homes.”