EPA fails to meet its own timeline, again

November marked another missed self-imposed deadline as the Environmental Protection Agency failed to release the toxicity review of Libby Amphibole asbestos. According to EPA’s published procedures, the toxicity assessment is the first step in cleaning up a Superfund site. The toxicity values provide a baseline for safe contaminant exposure levels, determining the amount of contaminated material that must be removed and what can be safely contained and left behind.

In a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy dated Nov. 3, 2014, Montana Governor Steve Bullock urged the agency to “issue the IRIS Toxicological Review of Libby Amphibole Asbestos as soon as possible.” Lincoln County commissioners, in a telephone meeting with EPA personnel on Nov. 12, expressed their “wholehearted support” of the governor’s letter.

The EPA has been conducting clean-up operations in and around Libby since 1999 and has declared a number of contaminated sites clean and safe, even though the toxicity values have not been released. The agency started the toxicity review process in 2007, following a December 2006 report by the Office of the Inspector General that determined “EPA has not completed a toxicity assessment of amphibole asbestos necessary to determine the safe level for human exposure; therefore EPA cannot be sure that the Libby cleanup sufficiently reduces the risk that humans may become ill or, if ill already, get worse.”

In what is seemingly another departure from established protocols, the EPA announced in a newsletter dated September 2014 that they were entering into the initial stages of developing the long-term maintenance plan for the site. That plan is dependent upon the active clean-up of the site, which is in turn dependent upon the toxicity assessment.

EPA Deputy Press Secretary Monica Lee said the delayed toxicity review process for Libby was not unusual. “The time it takes to complete an assessment varies with the complexity of the database for a given chemical and the range of scientific issues raised during public comment and peer review,” she said. “The Libby Amphibole Asbestos assessment process was not unusual in terms of steps or timing. It was a complex assessment and required some time to complete in part due to the sophisticated analyses and peer review by EPA’s SAB (Science Advisory Board).”

The Inspector General contradicted that statement in a follow-up report in April 2013. “U.S. Environmental Protection Agency action officials did not complete planned corrective actions under its Libby Action Plan in a timely manner. This occurred because the scope of the work was larger than originally thought; there was no established charter; and there were contracting delays, unanticipated work, and poor communication with stakeholders. Consequently, the Agency has twice revised its estimates for completing actions in response to our December 2006 report.”

Part of the delay has been attributed to W.R. Grace & Co., which operated the site from 1963 until its closure in 1990. The company provided a number of comments during the public review period. In response to the company’s interference, U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana released the following statement in October 2012: “We are acutely troubled by the response of W.R. Grace to the Science Advisory Board’s review. In our opinion, Grace lost the privilege to opine on the science of asbestos when it knowingly – and for decades – traded profits for lives in Lincoln County. We are not surprised to find Grace trying to cloud the science or hide behind the speculative liability of other property owners. But we take this opportunity to call a spade a spade and a snake a snake.”

W.R. Grace has twice this year inserted itself back into the process of the toxicity assessment. In February the company’s attorneys filed a petition with EPA to discontinue the dissemination of the draft toxicity assessment. That was followed up with a report provided to EPA Administrator McCarthy by Gradient, an environmental consulting firm funded by Grace, which called into question the methodology of the assessment.

In June 2014, EPA project manager Rebecca Thomas told The Western News “It (the toxicity assessment) has gone through a very rigorous scientific, peer-review process. Following an interagency review, we believe the numbers will be finalized by October 2014.”

Thomas said this week that the Gradient report would not influence the release of the assessment, characterizing it as “too little, too late.” She could not explain why the assessment was being delayed yet again but did reiterate, however, EPA’s latest commitment to have the assessment completed and released this fall, which, she pointed out, doesn’t technically end until “sometime in December.”