Vermiculite find highlights dispute over cleanup costs

The renovation work uncovered vermiculite in March.

The property owner notified Lincoln County’s Asbestos Resource Program.

Regulations adopted in March but not yet enacted would require owners of property within the Libby Superfund Site to notify the Asbestos Resource Program before beginning renovations, demolition, remodeling, excavation, property subdivision and more.

But the notification in March happened after the fact.

And it came during a period of regulatory transition, spotlighting existing uncertainty about which public entity, if any, would pay for the cleanup of materials contaminated with potentially deadly asbestos.

“We confirmed the vermiculite was there,” said Virginia Kocieda, executive director of the Asbestos Resource Program.

To protect the owner’s privacy she declined to disclose the property’s general location or specify it as residential or commercial.

“The next step was to write up a statement of work [to arrange for the cleanup],” Kocieda said.

And to determine who would pay for it. Would it be the EPA or the Montana Department of Environmental Quality or the property owner? Or some other entity?

When the EPA managed the remediation of the Libby Superfund Site the agency elected to leave vermiculite in place in instances where that seemed to be the best option — such as vermiculite insulation inside walls.

Mark Peck, chairman of the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners, and George Jamison, who sits on the county’s Board of Health, are members also of the Libby Asbestos Superfund Oversight Committee, or LASOC.

They and others previously raised concerns about a scenario akin to the one that has unfolded in the wake of the March renovation. They have long sought reassurances from EPA and DEQ that residents won’t be hit with costs related to emerging situations that require additional sampling or cleanup of the asbestos that is a legacy of vermiculite mining in the region. Asbestos fibers can embed in lung tissue and cause fatal diseases.

The EPA has remained in charge of Superfund Operable Unit 4 and Operable Unit 7 after properties within these units were judged to have been remediated. Operable Unit 4 includes residential, commercial and public properties in and around Libby and Operable Unit 7 includes the same array of properties in Troy.

Operable Unit 4 and Operable Unit 7 were poised to move into the Operation and Maintenance phase of the Superfund process and DEQ was going to assume responsibilities designed primarily to protect the remedy.

EPA planned to hand off the Operation and Maintenance responsibilities to DEQ on April 1, but that transition was postponed because of limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Members of LASOC have sparred with DEQ and its director, Shaun McGrath, about the DEQ’s apparent reluctance to use state controlled funds to pay for some scenarios that would require additional sampling or cleanup.

Kocieda told the board of health that the Asbestos Resource Program alerted both the EPA and DEQ after the March renovation encountered vermiculite.

She said the Asbestos Resource Program and EPA will likely hire a contractor with ARP funds to complete the remediation. Established in 2012, ARP has been funded through a cooperative agreement/grant between the EPA and the Lincoln County Board of Health. That agreement is slated to continue into June. In the meantime, the board of health is negotiating a new cooperative agreement with DEQ.

Peck, Jamison and regional officials have repeatedly said they believe the millions of federal and state dollars available for Operation and Maintenance should be adequate to pay for sampling or cleanup required going forward.

The EPA has been working on an Operation and Maintenance Plan for Operable Unit 4 and Operable Unit 7 but has not yet made that plan available for public review.

In an April 7 email, Beth Archer, a community involvement specialist for EPA, said that the plan was undergoing internal review and discussion between EPA and DEQ to reach agreement on some aspects of the document’s text.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a solid date to provide, though I am still hopeful we will be able to get the document to the public next week,” Archer said then.