Mr. Hutt worked for WR Grace for 18 months in 1968 and 1969 and was diagnosed with asbestosis in 2002. broom and snow shovel and made him sweep.” The workers weren’t wearing masks because they clogged too quickly, he said.
At least 400 deaths from asbestos-related causes have been reported in Libby, and more than 2,400 people have been diagnosed with asbestos-related illnesses at the Center for Asbestos Diseases clinic set up to treat residents of the city.
The infection affected far more than the workers. The US government in 2009 called it “the worst industrial poisoning of an entire community in American history.”
W. R. Grace began mining a vermiculite deposit on a wooded peak called Zonolith Mountain near Libby in the 1960s. A relatively harmless mineral, commercially known as zonolite, was used to insulate attics until the 1980s. But a naturally occurring type of deadly asbestos was found in the same deposit.
The mine produced seven to nine tons of dust a day for 10 years during the time the Maryland accident was part of the operations, and asbestos sometimes made up 60 to 80 percent of the airborne dust. Not only was dust billowing throughout the mine and factory, but most of the small town was filled with toxic levels of air.
According to the lawsuit, WR Grace and the Maryland Emergency hid this fact from the workers. The mine closed in 1990. However, the disease continued to spread.
Few outside of Libby knew what was happening until 1998, when a resident named Gayla Benefield sued WR Grace after her mother, Margaret Watland, died from what locals came to call “take home” asbestosis – her father, Perley Watland, brought the asbestos. home in his work clothes and infected his wife and children, including Ms Benefield. “Miners went to work in the mine and came home covered in dust,” Ms. Benefield said in an interview. “It was a badge of honour.