Libby, Montana Rhetorical Analysis Conclusion

Ultimately, Libby, Montana does document the connection between vermiculite-asbestos and Libby’s health concerns while also revealing the corporate cover-up and the heroic attempts by EPA on-sight emergency coordinator Peronard to implement cleanup efforts for the town. Yet the balanced approach taken by the filmmakers draws our sympathy away from the poisoned townspeople to Peronard’s own struggles to appease conflicted townspeople and encourages audiences to empathize with Governor Judith Martz’s reservations to support the extensive cleanup. By beginning the film’s historical background in the twentieth century instead of the 19th, the film also misses the chance to interrogate policies that allowed such mining to occur.

The good news is that Libby, Montana’s situation was dire enough to satisfy the EPA’s risk assessment study. The EPA began collecting samples in December 1999, collecting nearly 700 “from air, soil, dust and insulation at homes and businesses.” They released the first indoor air sample results in January 2000 to both property owners and the media and general public and located “areas in and near Libby that were likely to have high levels of contamination such as two former vermiculite processing facilities.” To determine the extent of the contamination, the EPA “also looked at general asbestos exposures in the community and at health effects seen in people who had little or no association with the vermiculite mine in Libby,” working

“closely with local, state and federal agencies to understand how people might come into contact with asbestos-contaminated vermiculite and what can be done to prevent future exposures” (“Libby Site Background”).

After three years of research, Libby was added to the EPA’s National Priorities List in October 2002, providing Libby with a Superfund Designation and the assurance of extensive cleanup. In September 2011, too, a Montana judge approved a $43 million settlement for the “more than one thousand asbestos victims in the town of Libby, Montana” (Mesothelioma News). The cleanup continues as of October 2011, with the addition of contaminated woodchips to exacerbate Libby’s problems (New York Daily News), problems that affect us all, according to Patricia A. Sullivan. Her study of Libby vermiculite workers revealed

“significant excess mortality from nonmalignant respiratory disease…even among workers with cumulative exposure” (584).

Her study’s conclusions, however, demonstrated how far-reaching Libby’s asbestos problem might be:

“Since vermiculite from the Libby mine was used to make loose-fill attic insulation that remains in millions of homes, these findings highlight the need for better understanding and control of exposures that currently occur when homeowners and construction renovation workers (including plumbers, cable installers, electricians, telephone repair personnel, and insulators) disturb loose-fill attic insulation made with asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from Libby, Montana.” (584)

Since approximately 80 percent of all vermiculite was produced in Libby, Montana until its mine and factories closed in 1990, the possibility that insulation is made with asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from Libby is high and reinforces the need to consider the production content of a home as well as its location.

According to the film, 218 crosses were displayed in memory of the known Libby asbestos victims.	Libby, Montana also shows some of the consequences that arose after the film’s context. By July 2004, for example, more than 1200 other Libby residents had been diagnosed with lung abnormalities.