News Coverage
Dangerous Asbestos Traced to Weedsport
Workers, neighbors of former W.R. Grace facility should seek medical testing
Published March 15, 2004
Federal health officials say the area near a closed factory in Weedsport should have a community evaluation for asbestos disease because workers and residents may have been exposed to cancer-causing fibers.
The former W.R. Grace Zonolite Company on Dunn Road is on a priority list of 28 locations nationwide that are under investigation for receiving vermiculite from a mine in Libby, Mont. The mine contained a particularly dangerous form of asbestos that contaminated the vermiculite.
The Weedsport plant processed 111,358 tons of vermiculite from the mine, federal records show. The factory turned the vermiculite into home insulation, sold under the name Zonolite. The Zonolite Company plant was operated by W.R. Grace from 1963 until closing in 1989. The factory is the only one in New York state to make the federal priority list.
Now state and federal health officials are advising former workers and their families to be examined for illnesses related to asbestos, a group of minerals whose fibers can cause lung disease and cancer.
At the same time, New York health officials have started investigating the potential health problems. The state plans to release a report of its findings later this week.
"Nearby residents and all of the employees who have been identified through the company will be receiving the report," said Claire Pospisil, a health department spokeswoman in Albany.
For most residents and local officials, the report will be the first word they have received about the plant's potential health threat.
Pospisil said she could not discuss any details of the report prior to its public release. She said the study did not include health examinations of any people who worked or lived near the plant. It is mostly a review and analysis of existing records.
"The report looks at the public health implications related to this site," Pospisil said. "We are looking at some of the residences that are near the plant. We also looked at the surrounding site."
She said state health officials obtained a list of former employees of the Zonolite Company in Weedsport. She did not know how many people are on that list. Federal health officials also could not supply a number.
"There are not a lot of people who worked at this plant," Pospisil said. "My understanding is that it was a very small operation."
The report's release will start a 30-day public comment period. Pospisil said such studies or "health consultations" generally make conclusions and recommendations. In some cases, the reports call for more study.
In conducting their study, state health officials did not hold any public meetings or make any public announcement about their investigation. The plant is in the Cayuga County town of Brutus, next to the "Park and Ride" lot at Exit 40 of the New York State Thruway. It can be seen from the Thruway, behind a farm field.
Town not notified
Brutus Town Supervisor Jon Ozolins said he is upset that state health officials never contacted him or local government officials.
"You would assume if they were going to do an investigation that they would at least have the courtesy to notify the town," Ozolins said. "The area has been looked at for years. Whatever they find, they find. But it might have been nice if they let the town know what was going on."
Among those who say they never heard from the health department is Phil Files, who lives with his wife and two young children, ages 7 and 4, across Dunn Road from the former Zonolite Company plant. The plant is a rusting metal shell surrounded by a chain link fence.
Files said he was told to go away by workers in "moon suits" when the federal Environmental Protection Agency showed up at the plant to take samples in 2001 and 2002. He hasn't heard anything since.
"They say it can't contaminate the water, but I'm on a well," said Files, who has lived across from the plant for about seven years. He said somebody came around to test his neighbor's well, which had no problems. But he's wary of the future use of the plant property.
"What if somebody comes in here and starts digging the stuff up?" he said. "That stuff could become airborne. And if they dig down around the plant, God only knows what they'll find."
The EPA did just that in 2001 and 2002.
A team from the EPA's Emergency and Remedial Response Division arrived in 2001 and took about 50 soil samples from the plant site. They wanted to see if asbestos dust from the vermiculite had contaminated the land.
Tests confirmed asbestos in three of those samples, said Mary Mears, an EPA spokeswoman in New York City.
"We concluded at the time that we didn't really find enough to take any kind of action," Mears said. "The site is fenced off. It's no longer in use. And asbestos is really only a threat if you have exposure."
The EPA returned in September 2002 to take tests on land owned by a farmer near the plant. This time 12 soil samples were taken to a depth of 2 feet. The samples showed no evidence of asbestos fibers, said Courtney Katz, another EPA spokeswoman in New York City.
"As far as the EPA is concerned, the case is closed," Katz said.
Lingering effects
While no significant contamination remains, according to the EPA, the potential health effects in former residents and workers could be a different story.
Since the W.R. Grace mine in Libby, Mont., closed in 1993, studies have shown that former workers at the mine have a death rate 60 times higher than the national average from asbestosis. The lung disease, caused by inhaling the tiny asbestos fibers, kills more than 1,200 Americans each year.
In 2002, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry began a review of more than 200 sites around the U.S. that received the asbestos-contaminated vermiculite ore mined in Montana from the early 1920s until 1990.
The federal health agency listed 28 of those sites, including Weedsport, as a priority based on the amount of vermiculite they made into insulation. The vermiculite ore at those sites was heated at high temperatures to expand or "pop" it. It's of particular concern because the process causes higher amounts of asbestos to be released than other processing methods.
The EPA issued a warning about Zonolite insulation in May 2003.
Federal officials estimate that 15 million to 35 million homes in the United States still have the Zonolite insulation. It was sold from the 1940s through the 1990s. The asbestos in the insulation is believed to be of minimal or no risk if undisturbed. Only a licensed contractor should remove such insulation.
Public health studies were completed in September at five of the priority sites. The studies concluded plant workers in those five cities were exposed to elevated levels of asbestos, said Scott Mall, an agency spokesman in Atlanta.
Other people living in the same household with those workers also may be at increased risk of asbestos disease because they could have been exposed to hazardous levels of asbestos fibers brought in on the workers' clothing, skin and hair, Mall said.
At the same time, the agency did not find any increased risk of asbestos diseases for residents in those five communities.
Mall said the earlier studies underscore the importance for former workers at Weedsport's Zonolite plant to be tested, along with their families. "If I worked at any one of those plants, I'd go see a doctor who specializes in asbestos-related disease," he said.
A national environmental group also suggests that those who lived near the vermiculite processing plants may be at increased risk. "People shouldn't take the advice lightly," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C.
"It doesn't take much exposure to cause mesothelioma (a rare cancer of the lungs) and fatal cancers down the road," Wiles said. "Anyone who spent time around someone who worked with asbestos should be concerned. We also think people who lived around the factory for any extended period of time should follow the same advice."
Spillage and dust
One former Zonolite worker in Weedsport has already taken that advice.
Jeff Ashby, who worked at the plant fresh out of high school in 1971, said he had a chest X-ray several years ago. He showed no evidence of asbestos exposure. But the disease takes an average of 20 to 50 years before symptoms show up.
Ashby said he is convinced that asbestos dust is all over the former Zonolite property.
"It's got to be buried," he said. "That stuff has to be all over the ground. When they unloaded railroad cars, they always had spillage. The dust used to blow all over the place."
Ashby said he worked as a bagger at the plant, placing insulation into paper bags before it was shipped out of the plant. "It was always dusty when it came out, before it went into the bag," he said.
The study
A copy of the New York State Health Department's study of the former W.R. Grace Zonolite Company plant will be made available for public review at the Weedsport Free Library, 2795 East Brutus St., Weedsport.