The Environmental Protection Agency has confirmed that it is moving to end the mammoth cleanup task of asbestos along railroads in Montana, where long-term asbestos mining has resulted in hundreds of deaths among local communities.
The vermiculite mines in Montana supplied asbestos for processing and was shipped across the country and widely used for several decades.
The cleanup efforts have been ongoing for more than two decades. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality are proposing to end their work on the remediation.
The rail line will continue to be used but the BNSF Railway, who owns the land, has agreed to manage the area to best protect human and environmental health, per a 2020 consent decree. There will be a focus on preventing soil disturbance and not using materials that still contain asbestos.
Peggy Williams is the Mayor of Libby, which was one of the most affected cities. She explained that topsoil and contaminated structures were previously removed, but the risk still remains in homes where asbestos-containing insulation was widely used.
“The only thing that’s lingering, that’s giving us problems, is the vermiculite left behind in residential structures,” Williams said.
The total cleanup bill for the homes, businesses and properties across the area was more than $600 million. Soil removal and other remediation tasks were undertaken over five separate projects between 2004 and 2018. The equivalent of about 800 dump truck loads were taken to an approved asbestos waste facility.
The asbestos mine itself is still ongoing and likely to continue for several years to come.