News Coverage
Sites receiving large asbestos shipments
Published March 3, 2004
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registration have identified 28 sites across the country that are believed to have received large shipments of vermiculite, a form of asbestos, from the W.R. Grace mine in Libby, Mont., between 1920 and the early 1990s.
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The sites are being investigated to see if they present a public health hazard. Cleanup of some sites has already begun. They are:
- The former W.R. Grace/Zonolite Company in Beltsville, Md. From 1966 until the early 1990s over 93,000 tons of vermiculite were processed at the plant.
- Texas Vermiculite Company in Dallas. Not a great deal is known about the site except that it received shipments from Libby and went out of use in 1997, although vermiculite processing ceased in the early 1990s.
- The Zonolite Company/W.R. Grace in Dearborn, Mich., which ceased operations in 1990.
- The former Western Minerals Products Company in Denver, Colo., which began operating before 1967 and ceased operations in 1990. Over 100,000 tons of vermiculite were shipped to the site.
- The Zonolite Company of East Hampston, Mass., which ceased operations in 1992.
- Celotex of Edgewater, N.J., a gypsum board manufacturer that used vermiculite in their products. Operations ceased in the 1970s.
- The Zonolite Company/W.R. Grace of Ellwood City, Pa., which ceased operations in 1969.
- The Ari-Zonolite Company of Glendale, Ariz., which ceased operations in 1964.
- Vermiculite of Hawaii, in Honolulu, which received vermiculite shipments from 1971 to 1981.
- California Zonolite/Diversified Insulation/W.R. Grace of Los Angeles, which ceased operations in 1976.
- O.M. Scott & Sons of Maryville, Ohio, which processed vermiculite until 2001 and is still operating.
- Western Mineral Products in Minneapolis, which received over 90,000 tons of vermiculite between 1938 and 1989.
- Robinson Insulation Company of Minot, N.D., which processed over 16,000 tons of vermiculite between 1967 and 1983.
- Zonolite Co. of New Castle, Pa., which ceased operations in 1992.
- Zonolite Co. of New Orleans, which ceased operations in 1990.
- California Zonolite/Diversified Insulation of Newark, Calif., which ceased operations about 1993.
- Western Minerals Products Co. of Omaha, Neb., which ceased operations in 1989.
- W.R. Grace/Solomon's Mines of Phoenix, Ariz., which ceased processing vermiculite in 1992, but is still operating.
- Vermiculite-Northwest of Portland, Ore., which ceased operations in the early 1990s.
- Supreme Perlite Co. of Portland, Ore., which received vermiculite primarily from South African mines, but also received shipments from Libby in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
- W.R. Grace and Co. in Santa Ana, Calif., which processed over 400,000 tons of vermiculite. Over 35,000 people lived within one miles of the site in 1990.
- Vermiculite-Northwest Inc. of Spokane, Wash., which ceased operations in 1974.
- The Zonolite Co. of St. Louis, Mo., which ceased operations in 1989.
- The Verlite Co./Schmelzer Sales of Tampa, Fla., which ceased processing vermiculite in the early 1990s.
- The Zonolite Co./W.R. Grace of Trenton, N.J., which ceased operations in 1994.
- The Zonolite Co. of Weedsport, N.Y., which ceased operations in 1989.
- W.R. Grace & Co. of West Chicago, Ill., which processed 273,000 tons of vermiculite before closing in 1996.
- The Zonolite Co. of Wilder, Ky., which ceased operations in the mid-1990s.
Source: The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
On the Net: www.atsdr.cdc.gov/naer/natlmap.html