MINNEAPOLIS MN Hundreds played on asbestos-tainted pile
MINNEAPOLIS - More than 650 people say that when they were kids, they played on an asbestos-tainted vermiculite scrap pile at a northeast Minneapolis factory, a Minnesota Department of Health survey has found. The three-year survey was disclosed to neighborhood residents in recent weeks. It also identified 49 former workers at the plant that was last operated by the W.R. Grace & Co. A separate report on exposure to the workers and their families has yet to be released.
Survey: Hundreds played on asbestos-tainted pile
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS - More than 650 people say that when they were kids, they played on an asbestos-tainted vermiculite scrap pile at a northeast Minneapolis factory, a Minnesota Department of Health survey has found.
In addition about 41 percent, or 2,639 of the 6,433 present and former neighborhood residents surveyed, reported some form of asbestos exposure from the plant that operated between 1938 and 1989.
But a senior health department official said Monday that the degree of exposures varied widely, and so do the residents’ risks of contracting asbestos-related diseases.
People who played the most frequently in the dusty scrap pile are believed to be among those at highest risk of diseases that take decades to produce symptoms, the Star Tribune reported in its Tuesday editions.
The three-year survey was disclosed to neighborhood residents in recent weeks. It also identified 49 former workers at the plant that was last operated by the W.R. Grace & Co. A separate report on exposure to the workers and their families has yet to be released.
But the preliminary findings already released show: 837 people reported direct contact with the waste, including 655 who said they played on the scrap pile; 801 were found to have lived within a block of the plant while it operated; 1,735 people reported living on a vermiculite-contaminated property.
The three-year survey provides the most complete picture to date of the degree of asbestos exposures. But it leaves unanswered most questions about residents’ medical conditions.
Health Department officials hope now to obtain funding from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry so they can answer some of those questions with a medical screening of those who say they were exposed.
The follow-up study also would match the names of present and former residents with data from the Health Department’s statewide cancer surveillance system. Between 1988 and 2002, cancer survey data from the two zip codes surrounding the former northeast Minneapolis Grace plant showed higher-than-expected incidences of lung cancer among men and asbestos-linked mesothelioma among women.
Public health officials see strong parallels between the Minneapolis neighborhood and the asbestos-ravaged northwestern Montana mining town of Libby, near the mountain where the tainted ore was mined beginning in the 1920s. Libby is the scene of the nation’s worst community exposure to asbestos, a health threat normally confined to the workplace.
The Minneapolis plant at 1720 E. Madison St. and a second plant nearby that closed in 1971 processed contaminated Montana ore for use in manufacturing vermiculite attic insulation, fire retardant sprays and other products.
Grace bought the Montana mine in 1963 and, shortly thereafter, purchased the Madison Street plant from the Western Mineral Products Co. Grace filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2001 and has been fighting a federal judge’s ruling that it must reimburse the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency $54.5 million for cleanup costs to date in Libby, as well as any future costs.
The $850,000 federally funded Minneapolis survey was triggered by a March 2000 Star Tribune report detailing two dozen deaths allegedly related to asbestos of Minnesota vermiculite plant workers and nearby residents. Lawyers and family members have since blamed several additional deaths on asbestos fibers from the plants.
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