EPA: No contamination from house fire

The Environmental Protection Agency said the fire that ravaged a home on Mineral Avenue in Libby last week did not result in any asbestos contamination.

“When the fire department cut into the walls some of the stuff fell out, but it didn’t burn. It wasn’t part of the fire,” Mike Cirian said in reference to vermiculite present at the scene. Cirian is the EPA’s Onsite Remedial Project Manager for Libby.

Cirian added that the agency has provided air-monitoring equipment to the Libby Volunteer Fire Department, but the equipment was not used at this fire so firm air quality and contamination data was not available with relation to this fire.

Concerns about possible contamination have arisen since the fire swept through the home of Dorothea Miner on Dec. 30. The fire was exacerbated by an explosion, which was presumably caused by the homeowner’s oxygen tanks. The exact causes of the blaze and the explosion are still under investigation.

The Environmental Protection Agency has claimed Libby’s ambient air is 100,000 times cleaner than it was at the height of vermiculite mining in the 1970s. Critics contend that the agency’s use of ambient air measurements creates a false sense of security, as Libby Amphibole asbestos doesn’t behave in the same manner as other types of asbestos.

Biologist and asbestos researcher Terry Trent explained the difference. “What was discovered in El Dorado, Calif., and then again in Libby, was that the heavy, dense tremolite fiber does not float in the air. It is not a gas, a fume or an aether. It is not held aloft by Brownian molecular motion in any significant fashion. It is, in short, a rock.”

Based upon those ambient air measurements, however, the agency decided that more aggressive cleanup was not required for Libby. They made the decision to leave vermiculite in homes and commercial structures in cases where the substances were sealed inside walls and attics.

In the case of fires, however, the air is not calm and walls and attics don’t remain sealed.

Cirian said he couldn’t speculate on the risk of contamination due to a fire in a more general sense, but that concern has been the topic of discussion for residents of Libby since the agency’s release of toxicity values and a draft human health risk assessment for Libby Amphibole asbestos.

To many, that report signaled the beginning of the end for active operations in Libby. The conclusion of those two reports validated the agency’s clean-up operations during the past 15 years in Libby, and confirmed speculation that active cleanups should be completed within the next three to five years.

The long-term integrity of those active clean-up efforts will be dependent upon the institutional controls left in place after the active clean-up phase ends. Those controls will determine how activities such as remodeling and demolition of contaminated structures are addressed in order to avoid releasing asbestos into the air.

Natural disasters don’t often conform to statutory controls. Asbestos presumably sealed inside walls and attics can be released when a wall is torn down or burned, and a great deal of Libby Amphibole asbestos will be left behind at the end of the Superfund cleanup.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s project manager, Rebecca Thomas, said the agency has worked with the Libby Volunteer Fire Department and provided both training and equipment for these types of situations. In addition to air monitoring equipment, Thomas said the department has been provided with decontamination equipment. She said firefighters responded well to the vermiculite spill during the fire, covering the area with water and calling in both the EPA and the Lincoln County Asbestos Resource Program to handle post-scene containment.

“I wouldn’t say there’s no risk,” Thomas said, adding that protocols for dealing with natural disasters need to be included as part of “robust institutional controls.”