Charges validate Libby man's quest for justice

The day Don Wilkins and other Libby residents have been waiting for arrived on Monday with news of federal criminal indictments against W.R. Grace and seven of its senior employees.

Wilkins wishes his father were alive to hear the news, but he died two years ago from asbestos disease.

"Dad would be jumping for joy right now," said Wilkins. "This gives validation to what we've been saying all along."

After the story of widespread death and disease linked to the former Grace vermiculite mine in Libby came to light in 1999, Wilkins began a campaign to have criminal charges filed against Grace. He wrote to the Lincoln County attorney, the attorney general, then-Gov. Marc Racicot and others, sharing information from incriminating documents he and his late father, Bob Wilkins, had gathered during their research.

Eventually, the federal government took note of the evidence piling up against Grace and began its own probe.

Bob Wilkins was president of union Local 361 at the mine and assembled numerous documents before his death that he believed showed how Grace officials were successful in shutting down a study in the early 1980s that would have brought the miners' abnormal lung X-rays to the forefront on a national level.

A letter written by attorney Mario Favorito, one of the seven Grace employees indicted Monday, was among Wilkins' documentation.

Favorito wrote to the Mine Safety and Health Administration to explain why the company felt the study wasn't needed.

"… the worker exposure to asbestiform tremolite contamination from the inception of mining at Libby until the mid-1970s was so high in relation to the present standard as to completely mask and make practically impossible any attempt to measure exposures to vermiculite itself," Favorito wrote. "Since the mid-1970s few additions have been made to the Libby worker population. Thus, utilization of Libby as a focus to study exposure to vermiculite would be a wasteful and redundant expenditure of scarce government manpower, money and effort since it would only verify that excess asbestos fiber exposure results in adverse health effects."

The reaction from Libby area community leaders about the indictments was not one of surprise. They see it as the next step in delivering some measure of justice to asbestos victims.

"I believe it restores the people's faith in government, that government works," Lincoln County Commissioner Rita Windom said. "I think many people thought this would be something pushed under the rug."

Libby Mayor Tony Berget said if prosecutors have evidence of criminal activity, the company should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

"I'm very confident justice will prevail and the right things will happen," Berget said.

Both Berget and Windom were surprised that former Grace manager Alan Stringer was singled out as a "fall guy" of sorts in the indictments. He has accused of trying to obstruct the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's investigation of the extent of asbestos contamination in the Libby area that began in 1999.

Stringer, who was unavailable for comment on Monday, managed the Libby mine from 1988 to 1994 and oversaw the reclamation project after the mine closed. He was working for Grace in Santa Ana, Calif., when Grace called him back to Libby to be the corporate front man as the federal government began its investigation.

"We will assist the state and the EPA in their ongoing investigation," Stringer said in December 1999 after Grace set up its Libby office. "We also want to be here so our former employees and anyone else with a question about our operations can talk directly to us."

Stringer lived in Libby for 13 years. His children grew up there and graduated from Libby High School.

He remains Grace's point of contact for Libby residents, particularly as it relates to the company's medical coverage for asbestos patients. He now faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted.

Another local Grace employee, William McCaig, is among the seven Grace employees indicted. He served as general manager at the Libby mine for several years between Earl Lovick and Stringer.

"He helped me coach Little League," Wilkins recalled. "My kids graduated with his kids."

McCaig no longer resides in the Libby area.

"We do know that local managers were privy to information and they chose to ignore it," Windom said.

Kalispell lawyer Roger Sullivan, one of the lead attorneys representing asbestos victims in civil lawsuits against Grace, weighed in on the indictments, saying "we've contended for some time that Grace's documented policy of putting profits over people injured hundreds of innocent people.

"Now we'll find out if Grace and its senior employees violated any criminal laws," Sullivan said.

Wilkins said his efforts in exposing Grace's criminal activity were never about the money.

"Any monetary [settlements] they paid out were nothing compared to the lives they disrupted through the years," he said. "They should be held accountable. Maybe this will send a message to corporate America that you can't kill your workers and get away with it."

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com