Both sides wrong side of tracks in Libby

Kris Erickson grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Libby.

For those who lived in the small town in Northwest Montana during the 20th century, the wrong side was being anywhere close to those railroad tracks that transported thousands of tons of vermiculite around the country.

“I lived right next to the railroad tracks,” she said. “At the time, we didn’t really think much about it, but those cars were uncovered.”

Asbestos-laced dust swirled along the tracks, with some measure of the sparking dust making its way into Libby homes.

Erickson, 51, moved to Libby in the 1970s with her family. She played on the ballfields and ran on the track built with tailings from the W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine. Her best friend’s father worked in the mine and would come home with the dust falling off his clothes. Her father would take her up Rainy Creek, right where the ore was extracted from “Zonolite Mountain.”

“We were exposed in every house we lived in, in our attics, in our yards, in the walls,” she said. “The current house I live in was cleaned, but how clean?”

Since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency came to Libby to lead a cleanup effort, they have cleaned two different homes Erickson has lived in three times.

Her mother had lung disease complications. Now, Erickson struggles to breathe even after minor exertion.

“I’m disabled now,” she said. “I’ve been off work for about a year, I was basically running myself into the ground.”

Erickson was an employee at Rosauers, Libby’s biggest grocery store, for 33 years. She said she loved the work and it gave her a sense of purpose. But when she was tested at the Center for Asbestos Related Disease, called the CARD Clinic, in 2007, the scarring from asbestos had started encircling her lungs.

“It’s kind of hard,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do about it.

“My biggest concerns are the boys,” she added, referring to her 21- and 19-year-old sons. “One has been screened and cleared, but they’ve definitely been exposed.”

Libby’s unique amphibole asbestos has a latency period of 40 years, meaning Erickson’s sons may not see any scarring on the membrane containing the lungs — a condition known as pleural plaquing — until they are nearing retirement.

One of her sons, who is going to school in Bozeman, has said he wants to come back and live in Libby. Erickson said there never really was a thought to move her family away from Lincoln County.

“There’s a lot of adjusting you have to do,” she said. “You can do everything you used to do, you just can’t do it as fast. The really intense stuff is out of the question.”

Erickson seems to take her plight in stride.

“I’ve got a pretty good outlook and just try and live my life the best I can,” she said.