EPA Refused to Warn of Asbestos Dangers; Millions of Homeowners at Risk
Congressional investigators will hammer the Environmental Protection Agency in a soon-to-be-released report for its flawed examination and cleanup of hundreds of factories that once processed asbestos-contaminated vermiculite into insulation.
But public health specialists say the investigation ignores an even greater failure: the EPA’s refusal to adequately warn millions of homeowners that they may be exposed to cancer-causing asbestos in that insulation.
The Government Accountability Office conducted the investigation for Congress. The report, expected to be made public later this month, will say that the EPA’s examination of sites in Spokane, Portland and 264 other communities that processed ore from Libby, Mont., used outdated criteria and underestimated or completely missed the dangers to people who worked there or lived nearby.
But the report will not address the EPA’s failure to warn homeowners about the risks they face from the insulation.
“It is unconscionable that EPA would not inform the American public of the danger they live with by having this potentially lethal material in their homes,” said Dr. Richard Lemen, former assistant U.S. Surgeon General, and acting director of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.
The hazard from exposure to the tremolite asbestos contaminating the vermiculite insulation is well known, Lemen said, “and for EPA to basically keep it a secret from homeowners for all these years is outrageous.”
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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/04/4384/