LIBBY, Mont. — When Paul Resch was a kid, he spent his time walking through asbestos through the northwestern Montana town of Libby, just yards from the railroad tracks that kicked up dust as trains carried pollutants from mountaintop mines. I remember playing baseball on fields made of contaminated vermiculite.
During long days along the railroad tracks along the Kootenai River, he liked to sneak into vermiculite-filled storage bins in the adjacent depot to catch pigeons for food.
Now 61, Lesh is battling an asbestos-related disease that has left severe scarring on his left lung. He is vulnerable, tires quickly, and knows that there is no cure for an illness that can suffocate over time.
“Everyone has probably been exposed to it at some point,” he said of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite. “It was piled up along the railroad tracks. … It’s going to be dusty downtown.”
Nearly 25 years after federal authorities responded to news reports of deaths and illnesses in Libby, a town of about 3,000 people near the U.S.-Canada border, some asbestos victims and their families are We are calling for public liability to be held against one major company. In Tragedy: BNSF Railway.
hundreds of people died Researchers and health officials say more than 3,000 people have become ill from asbestos exposure in the Libby area. Texas-based BNSF is facing charges of negligence and wrongful death for allegedly failing to control clouds of contaminated dust that once swirled from its train yards and settled in Libby’s neighborhood.
Vermiculite was shipped by rail from Libby for use as insulation in homes and businesses across the United States.
The first of hundreds of lawsuits against BNSF for its role in polluting the Libby community is scheduled to begin Monday, lawyers said.
The railroad, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, denied liability in a court filing and declined further comment.
Mr. Resch works at an auto dealership in Libby, and his wife is named as a plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit against BNSF in the Montana Asbestos Claims Court.
I’m not sure if my illness came from the railroad yard. The Libby High School truck contained contaminated vermiculite, as did the insulation in the walls and attics of homes he entered during his 20 years as a volunteer firefighter.
The plaintiffs in the upcoming lawsuit against BNSF, the estate of Joyce Walder and Thomas Wells, live near the Libby depot and moved there decades ago. Both died in 2020 from mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a rare form of lung cancer caused by asbestos, which is unusually common in Libby.
A few miles from town, the mine once produced 80 percent of the world’s vermiculite supply. It was closed in 1990. Nine years later, the Environmental Protection Agency arrived at Libby, and the ensuing cleanup cost an estimated $600 million, most of it paid for with taxpayer money. Although still ongoing, officials say the amount of asbestos in the air in downtown Libby is 100,000 times lower than when the mine was operating.
Awareness of the dangers of asbestos has increased significantly in recent years, and last month the EPA banned the last remaining industrial use of asbestos in the United States.
The ban did not include asbestos fibers of the type found in Libby, nor did it address so-called “legacy” asbestos already present in homes, schools and businesses. A long-awaited government analysis of the remaining risks is due by December 1.
Asbestos does not burn and is resistant to corrosion, making it long-lasting in the environment. People who breathe in the needle-like fibers can develop health problems 40 years after exposure. Health officials expect to be dealing with newly diagnosed cases of asbestos disease for decades.
The EPA declared the nation’s first public health emergency in 2009 under Libby’s Superfund cleanup program. The contamination led to civil claims from thousands of people who worked in the mines, on the railroad, or lived in the Libby area.
The Libby Depot cleanup effort, which began in 2003, spanned a year, with crews excavating nearly the entire depot and removing approximately 18,000 tons of contaminated soil. In 2020, BNSF signed a consent decree with federal authorities to settle 42 miles (68 kilometers) of railroad right-of-way in addition to cleanup near Libby and Troy.
Last year, BNSF won a federal lawsuit against Libby’s Asbestos Treatment Clinic, where a jury found that the clinic filed 337 false asbestos claims and found patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits.
The judge overseeing the case ordered the Center for Asbestos-Related Diseases to pay nearly $6 million in fines and damages, forcing the facility into bankruptcy. We are continuing to operate with reduced staff.
Some asbestos victims saw the lawsuit as a ploy to discredit the clinic and weaken their case against the railroad. BNSF said the ruling will deter “future misconduct” by the clinic.
In the months leading up to this week’s trial, BNSF lawyers tried to avoid responsibility for making people sick, including by pointing to the actions of W.R. Grace, which owned the mine from 1963 until it closed. Tried repeatedly.
They also questioned whether other sources of asbestos could have caused the plaintiffs’ illnesses, and suggested that Mr. Walder and Mr. Wells may have trespassed on railroad property.
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris blocked BNSF from blaming others’ actions as a way to avoid liability. And he said the law does not support the idea that trespass relieves a property owner’s duty to do no harm.
Mr. Morris has not yet issued a final verdict on another important issue. The railroad’s argument is that its obligation to ship goods to paying customers exempts it from liability.
The plaintiffs argue that the railroad yard in downtown Libby (where Resch once played in a pile of vermiculite) is used for storage as well as transportation, meaning the railroad is not exempt.
In a separate case, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that BNSF and its predecessors were deeply involved in mining, not just shipping product.
Mine owner WR Grace filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and paid $1.8 billion to an asbestos trust fund to settle future lawsuits. It paid government agencies about $270 million for environmental damage and cleanup efforts.
The state of Montana was also accused of failing to warn residents about asbestos exposure in the Libby case. A total of $68 million in settlements was paid to approximately 2,000 plaintiffs.
BNSF has settled some previous lawsuits for an undisclosed amount, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. A second trial against the railroad in the Libby resident’s death is scheduled for May in federal court in Missoula.
“I really hope they give them justice,” Lesh said of the upcoming trial. “As far as corporate America is concerned, everyone was in on it.”
