Amid
continued debate, the federal government appears ready to warn
millions of home and business owners about the dangers of
potentially lethal asbestos-contaminated insulation in their
walls and attics.
After almost two years of first ignoring and then playing down
the risk from vermiculite insulation, called Zonolite, the
Environmental Protection Agency said it would launch a
nationwide consumer information program.
"This will be a major announcement," David Cohen, a senior EPA
spokesman, said. "We're planning to go all out just as we did
for radon and asbestos in schools and other major toxic
problems.
"It looks like this will go beyond just having the warning
prominently displayed on EPA's Web site. There could be news
conferences, press releases and pamphlets distributed in
hardware and home improvement stores."
Cohen said the announcement could be within three or four weeks.
But he's not sure what it will say beyond warning people not to
touch Zonolite insulation in their homes for fear of sending
asbestos fibers into the air.
"The science needs to be done to prove whether or not this
product is dangerous, but I'm sure the message we'll convey to
the public will be like the card on a hotel room door - 'Do Not
Disturb,'" Cohen said.
A heated argument continues at EPA headquarters, with some in
the agency's science and program sections demanding that
additional testing be undertaken.
In December, the Post-Dispatch reported that the EPA was ready
to warn the public three times last year as part of a
declaration of a public health emergency in the Montana town of
Libby. Hundreds of miners and their family members have been
sickened or killed by asbestos in the vermiculite ore that came
from a W.R. Grace mine. The White House Office of Management and
Budget convinced the agency not to make the emergency
declaration, and the warning to an estimated 35 million
homeowners never came about.
Congress voices
concerns
The EPA's agreement
to make the public announcement came after an increase in
pressure from members of Congress.
On Feb. 6, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., made a speech on the
Senate floor denouncing EPA lethargy in warning the public of
the hazards from the insulation made from asbestos-tainted
vermiculite. Murray also faulted the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health for failing to tell workers the
even greater hazards they may face renovating, wiring or
stringing telephone or television cables in attics.
Murray told her Senate colleagues that the reason that she's so
concerned about the cancer-causing vermiculite is that residents
in her state and every other state are being exposed to asbestos
from Zonolite. The EPA and other federal agencies estimate that
as many as 35 million homes and businesses contain the material.
"I am deeply concerned that most people with Zonolite in their
homes are completely unaware of this problem," Murray said. "I
am afraid most will not learn of it until they have already been
exposed to dangerous levels of asbestos."
Dr. Gregory Wagner, director of the Division of Respiratory
Disease Studies for the National Institute of Occupational
Safety and Health, said his agency didn't release its warning to
workers because they were waiting for the result of the EPA's
studies.
"We had expected it was going to come in first last summer, then
last fall and then this winter," Wagner said. "Because of the
delays, we're reconsidering the decision to wait further in
putting out our fact sheet and are likely to move ahead at this
point."
Wagner said the notice should be released within the next few
weeks.
The report Wagner was waiting for was a study by Versar, an EPA
contractor that has been doing studies on Zonolite since 1985.
The recent study was begun in 2001 and ended up with the testing
of six homes in Vermont that had Zonolite in their attics.
Neither Wagner nor any of the EPA's emergency response or
asbestos teams in its regional offices have seen the report.
However, the agency did give a copy to W.R. Grace.
The study shows that low levels of asbestos were found in the
insulation lying between the rafters. But the levels of
cancer-causing fibers sent into the air when the insulation was
even gently disturbed was unexpectedly high, to the surprise of
many experienced in dealing with asbestos.
Democrats pressure
the EPA, budget office
A week ago, Murray and 10 other congressional Democrats demanded
in a letter to EPA Administrator Christie Whitman and Mitch
Daniels, director of the White House Office of Management and
Budget, that they explain why the public is not being warned of
the hazard from Zonolite.
"It is the height of irresponsibility for President Bush to keep
quiet when millions of families are at real risk," said Rep. Jan
Schakowsky of Illinois, the ranking Democrat on the House
Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee.
"In Illinois and across the country, families are facing health
hazards at home and at work from asbestos exposure. The American
people deserve to have all the information they can to keep
their families safe," said the Chicago-area lawmaker.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York added: "It is completely
outrageous that the agency charged with protecting the public
health keeps important information on this behind a veil of
secrecy, from coast to coast." The New York City Democrat has
been battling the EPA over what he sees as a cover-up of
contaminants released from the World Trade Center collapse.
"For EPA now to decide that millions of people have no right to
know what's contained in this material, it is malfeasance of the
highest degree," Nadler said.
Whitman says
more study is needed
According to EPA Administrator
Whitman, more study is needed before the notification is made.
"We need to have the scientific data to go out with something,"
Whitman told reporter Steve Wilson of WXYZ-TV in Detroit earlier
this month.
"We are doing aggressive scientific additional studies to see
what it takes, where the threat matrix is, and how far we need
to go in warning people about what they do," said Whitman, who
added, "We don't know it to be a danger."
The White House Office of Management and Budget said it didn't
get involved with any plans for a public notification because
the EPA told the budget office that "it lacked the scientific
proof" of the health dangers from Zonolite.
Marcus Peacock, the budget office's associate director for
natural resources, said Thursday that the EPA never "really
raised" the issue of notifying the public outside of Libby.
"There was no scientific evidence that this was really an
emergency," Peacock said, adding that the EPA told him that the
amount of asbestos in the insulation "was so small that it
wasn't a significant problem."
"The folks in EPA ...
didn't even know how many homes around the country were at
risk," Peacock said. "EPA never recommended that they go ahead
with an emergency notification, and so we never rejected that."
Peacock said he has heard nothing about the EPA's new plans to
notify the public.
"We'll certainly review it and take a look at it. But we
certainly would want to see the scientific proof," Peacock said.
EPA's Libby team
has no doubt
Those in the EPA involved with protecting the people in Libby
and with the extensive research that has been done on the
tremolite asbestos which contaminates the vermiculite, challenge
their headquarters' assertion that there is no scientific proof
of the danger of Zonolite.
Dr. Aubrey Miller is
a toxicologist and the senior medical officer for EPA Region 8
and has been part of the team assessing dangers in Libby since
the EPA arrived in November 1999.
Every time he sees Joelle, his 4-year-old daughter, he says he
thinks of children throughout the country who could be exposed
to Zonolite.
"It is unconscionable that kids could be routinely playing with
this stuff up in enclosed nonventilated attic spaces, where the
airborne asbestos concentrations can be extremely high and stay
that way for many hours after disturbance," Miller said. "We
need to be especially concerned about kids due to the long time
they will have to manifest disease from their early childhood
exposures."
The physician said he doesn't know why EPA headquarters is
demanding more studies.
"Tests that have been done for over 20 years by everyone from
W.R. Grace, to the Canadian military to EPA itself have shown
that Zonolite insulation rapidly releases dangerously high
levels of airborne asbestos fibers with the most minor
disruption," Miller said.
Debating the
Versar study
Some at
the EPA in Washington say the extensive testing done by Versar
didn't prove the danger, even though the amount of fibers
released when the insulation was moved was higher than the
federal safety standard for workers. Many of those in
headquarters choose to ignore those high levels in the air and
instead point to the testing of the bulk insulation, which
showed levels of asbestos at or below the 1 percent level, which
is the EPA's definition for asbestos-containing material.
Miller and others say the danger must be measured by what
becomes airborne.
"The fact that the testing of the bulk samples of the insulation
as it lays undisturbed in the attic show low levels or no level
of asbestos cannot and should not be construed as not being
dangerous," Miller said. "The real test of danger from any
asbestos-containing material comes from samples of air collected
above the material in the zone where people will be breathing."
Even when Versar wet the insulation in the Vermont testing and
took air samples, the numbers of fibers was still above levels
the government considers safe for workers.
"These airborne fibers are very hazardous," Miller said. "People
must be warned about this."
All sides in the dispute agree that the risk from Zonolite is
minimal if the attic is well-sealed, if the material is not
leaking into lower floors through cracks and if no one ever
comes in contact with the Zonolite or its dust.
"But for those people who go up to their attic more than once a
year or their kids are playing up there, or people who are
working up there, for them, this is a serious hazard," Miller
said.
Chris Weis, another EPA toxicologist who has done extensive
studies on Zonolite, added: "The bottom line is that this
material is very poisonous when it is inhaled.
"EPA, Grace and many others have shown that disturbing
asbestos-contaminated vermiculite causes exposures above short-
and long-term federal limits," said Weis. "Residents and workers
who are repeatedly exposed to this material are at particularly
high risk of lung disease." |