Libby, Montana Rhetorical Analysis, Continued

To further confuse the message of Libby, Montana, interviews reveal the pain behind the beauty. One worker in the Zonolite mine, for example, suffered health problems because the Zonolite Company and, after 1963, W.R. Grace, Incorporated, developed vermiculite into products that were found near his farm. To introduce the source of the vermiculite, the film provides shots of the mine from above. The film explains that vermiculite was procured through strip-mining that began as early as 1919 and used for insulation and fertilizer, products managed and distributed by the Scotts Lawn Care Company. What the film reveals, however, is that workers in the mine were dying of cancer at astronomical rates, a horrific truth local W. R. Grace manager Earl D. Lovick knew but dismissed for profit.

Here one of the victims of vermiculite poisoning, Les Skramstad, a long-time Zonolite employee, explains his own health concerns. Les was reluctant to talk with the filmmakers because his neighbors had labeled him a radical for suggesting W.R. Grace and Zonolite had contributed to his disease.	Les and his family share happier days in a family photo taken while Les worked for Zonolite.
Libby, Montana includes multiple shots of the trial determining Zonolite’s culpability in the massive cancer deaths in the region. From 1963 forward, the company was owned by W.R. Grace, and local manager, Earl Lovick, served as the star witness in the case. Lovick died of asbestos-related cancer in 1999.	Like Blue Vinyl, Libby, Montana shows actual documented evidence of corporate knowledge of the dangers of asbestos exposure. This piece highlights the toxicity of vermiculite. Within two years of acquiring the mine, Grace's internal memos show the company discussing the mine dust's extreme toxicity — information never given to employees.
Another victim, Bob Wilkins, recounts his own experiences as a Zonolite employee. Because the dust from the mine clogged their breathing apparatus, many employees removed them in order to continue working and keep their jobs. No one at Zonolite informed them of the dangers of vermiculite exposure and inhalation.	This letter displayed in Libby, Montana, serves as clear evidence that W.R. Grace and Zonolite were culpable in the rash of asbestos-related cancers spreading through Libby and the surrounding area.

On top of this flagrant act of subterfuge, the mine waste was also uncontrolled because of downsizing of the EPA and its affiliates during the Reagan administration (1981-1988), and W. R. Grace, Incorporated embezzled $4 billion and declared bankruptcy, so the US government would have to pay for the cleanup.[3] [open endnotes in new window]

Because of this complex context, the film asserts that Libby needs a Superfund designation from the EPA in order to finance the cleanup, a claim then EPA chief Christy Whitman supports in spite of Montana’s governor (Judy Murtz) ability to veto the National Priorities List (NPL) Superfund funds. In 2002, a guarantee for clean up but not for health or insulation removal was approved. The Public Health Emergency was excluded because of federal funding cuts. The rest of the film documents the reasons for the Superfund designation and its results. The filmmakers first emphasize and describe workers whose health was destroyed because of vermiculite: Bob Wilkins, who worked from 1969-1990, a worker now in North Dakota with almost no lungs left and another miner who gets x-rays every year with no report, for example. These workers and others contract asbestosis and other forms of cancer.

The film also demonstrates that there is proof that the company knew of these consequences since 1948.  Corporate heads knew by 1956 that there was asbestos in the dust, but the workers did not know that tremolite, in the dust, was asbestos. The company had even documented the percent of workers dying on a graph that only corporate heads would see. According to this graph, ninety two percent of employees die by the time they have worked for the company for twenty years. And the cancers were not confined to miners and workers in the plant. Workers’ whole families contracted cancer. As of May 2002, according to the film, the EPA study reveals 246 asbestos deaths and 1200 diagnoses of asbestos poisoning.  Because of these deaths and illnesses, the EPA designates the town as a Superfund site and attempts to clean up the tremolite asbestos in the mine, plants, and surrounding homes with help from its emergency coordinator Paul Peronard.  In Libby, as in any town where asbestos insulates a home or fertilizes a garden, a home becomes a hazard rather than a shelter.