New science contradicts EPA, but the asbestos isn't gone

Excellent. The article presented by The Western News “Asbestos and pre 1990 adolescent exposure” combined with two papers, one referenced therein, “The pre adult latency study” Szelnuk et al 2016 and the paper preceding it “Multiple pathway asbestos exposure” Noonan et al 2015, begin to draw a scientifically based picture of an environmentally exposed community, that abruptly disagrees with previously released public information by EPA.

Stated another way, if the previous information released to Libby residents as true science, over a 16 year period by EPA, were a moonshot, the poor vehicle would explode on its way to the moon. If the combination of papers referenced by Dr. Jean Pfau in the current Western News report were also a moon shot, it would land us on the moon safely, with only a handfull of problems to resolve before the vehicle could return. This is substantial progress.

The exposure information presented in Noonan, breaks with EPA methods by interpreting activity based exposures only. For the first time in the United States we begin to see pretty closely, exactly what is meant by “low exposures” to a single asbestos type. (Winchite and Richtorite are not “asbestos” in any classical or previous regulatory sense, see below). We see pretty clearly that the previous study by EPA’s Barry et al, that measured ambient air “asbestos” in Eureka and Helena, a measurement of a completely different fiber type than exists in Libby, released to the public of Libby as an indication that Libby was now safe, is irrelevant to the safety of Libby, or anywhere else for that matter. This is also progress in helping dispel the long-held dogmas and quite public inaccuracies of the EPA regulatory asbestos story. That paper also helps show us that ambient air monitoring of the type still utilized across the United States to determine any given communities safety”, is also irrelevant, a waste of money and time. The only measurements with any meaning are those that target a specific fiber type, in Libby’s case Tremolite, and specific human activity related to that fiber type.

This is not to say that Winchite and Richtorite are not contributory or causative to the health outcome of Libby as shown in Szelnuk, However, those fiber types may very well be a distraction in the consideration of the disease mesothelioma. Libby has an extremely low and unexpected rate of mesothelioma by comparison to places such as Metsovo Greece, where the exposure is a much higher percentage of Tremolite fiber. It very well may be that the only mesotheliomagenic agent in the Libby mixture is the Tremolite fiber itself. Which should, but does not, ring alarm bells for EPA regarding other communities in the U.S. that have high levels of human Tremolite exposure. Additionally, alarm bells for these other areas exposed to high levels of Tremolite should be going off even louder regarding pleural thickening. These bells are also not ringing.

Finally, and far more specific for Libby residents, it is important to recognize regarding Dr. Jean Pfau’s comment that a huge amount of asbestos is gone in Libby and that children growing up in Libby are at much lower risk because of this. That this is a transitory, temporary effect of EPA’s clean up. The science of the matter conducted by soil scientists and myself, do not support that this asbestos will be gone for long, if even at all. I offer a fairly recent study for your consideration: “A new study led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego scientist Jane Willenbring challenges the long-held belief that asbestos fibers cannot move through soil.”

Terry Trent, Biologist

Auburn, California