For thirty years, W.R. Grace & Co. knew that the Zonolite vermiculite mine they owned in Libby, Montana was contaminated, and they knew why the people of Libby were dying. But according to investigative reporters, they did nothing, nor did the state of Montana, or the U.S. Government. This week, W.R. Grace & Co. and seven of its current or former top officials have been indicted on charges that they knowingly put their workers and the public in danger through exposure to vermiculite ore contaminated with asbestos from the company's mind in Libby, Montana.
AN AIR THAT KILLS (Berkley Trade Paperback January 2005) is one of the most important works of environmental journalism in years, eloquently told by the award-winning journalists that brought the story to the world - Andrew Schneider, Deputy Managing Editor for investigations for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and David McCumber, Managing Editor of the Seattle Post- Intelligencer. This is the true story of a small Montana town devastated by a vermiculite mine owned by the profit hungry W.R. Grace & Co.
In a beautiful valley in the Cabinet Mountains of Montana, the United States government spent millions trying to remove tons of toxic residue from a town that had lain pristine for ages -- until the last century, when the dust came down like a snowstorm. That dust turned a paradise into the worst of America's killing fields, a place now known to be deadlier than all the others put together: Libby, Montana.
W.R. Grace -- and the Zonolite Company before it -- hid the risks of its mining business for more than 60 years. Toxic dust contaminated with lethal asbestos fibers poured out of the mine for decades, poisoning the men who worked there, the families they went home to and the town that grew around it. In 1969, more than two and a half tons of asbestos were released into the Libby air each day. In the years that followed, those levels nearly doubled and hundreds died from asbestos exposure. Worst of all, the town was left to die by every branch of every government charged with making sure something like this didn't happen.
AN AIR THAT KILLS is the story of the ongoing use of asbestos in products ranging from insulation to cat litter. It is the full tale of the tragedy that was, the people who fought back, the danger that continues, and the risks of exposure that are still out there in former processing plants, backyards, attics and even family cars.
During his 30 years in journalism, Andrew Schneider has specialized in investigating issues of public health and safety. He has worked for the Associated Press, The Pittsburgh Press, Scripps Howard Newspapers, the Seattle Post Intelligencer and Newsweek. David McCumber is a veteran journalist with 30 years' experience at ten newspapers around the West. He was executive editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press and an assistant managing editor at the San Francisco Examiner before coming to the Post Intelligencer as senior editor for projects in 1999.