Educational Media Reviews Online

As the lumbering industry in Montana began to wind down in the 1930’s, residents of Libby began to work for Zonolite, a company that strip mined vermiculite and produced 70% of the world’s supply of the product for decades. Vermiculite is a multipurpose mineral that may be used in a number of agricultural applications and also as insulation. Zonolite was acquired by W.R. Grace Company in 1963. Grace pursued a more aggressive program of marketing and mining vermiculite than Zonolite had. Since 1948, mining dust has been seen as a health hazard. Even worse, dust from the Libby vermiculite contained asbestos. At the time of filming, generations of Libby residents had been exposed to asbestos which, according to a 1969 Grace internal memo indicated that 92% of their 20 year workers would die of lung disease. The Libby plant was shut down in 1990. The remaining question at hearings beginning in 1996 was who would provide healthcare for exposed workers and citizens of Libby: Montana, W.R. Grace, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The quality of the video is excellent. It was originally produced by High Plains Films in 2004 and nominated for an Emmy in 2008 after it was shown on PBS’s P.O.V. (Point of View documentaries). The story is told through stock footage, vintage commercial film clips, court videos, interviews with dying asbestosis victims, general citizens of Libby, and views of town meetings with Montana Governor Judy Martz, and EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman. The efforts of Paul Peronard of U.S.EPA, and his team who coordinated an emergency cleanup of Libby beginning in late 1999, together with the citizens of Libby effectively forced the Governor to support designation of Libby as a Superfund cleanup site in 2002. But who pays? W.R. Grace filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001! Meanwhile, civil litigation citing that Grace knowingly mislead its workers about the health hazards of the Libby vermiculite dust are proceeding at the time of this review (May 2009).

This video is highly recommended in support of high school and college curricula in environmental studies. That the area of Libby, MT and Northwest Montana is incredibly beautiful contrasts effectively with the suffering and death inherent in breathing the asbestos-laced dust produced in the course of making a living for miners and their families. The involvement of Grace executives in the Libby community, the same executives who were withholding health information from their employees, contrasts well with W.R. Grace’s impetus to cash in on their marketing of the Zonolite brand of vermiculite. The suffering of the folks impacted by asbestosis, the shame of it all, is very, very moving.

Awards

• 2008 Emmy nominee (documentary)