TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Eden, Vermont residents furious with Health Dept. over asbestos mine report

January 13, 2009 – Eden, Vermont residents fumed against Health Department officials yesterday for their report that links asbestos-related deaths and hospitalizations to a local asbestos mine.

More than 250 people in Eden – many of them property owners – crowded into a school gymnasium yesterday to hear Health Department officials discuss a report that links local cases of asbestos-related lung disease to an abandoned Vermont asbestos mine in the area.

Many people attending the hearing responded with anger, citing the continued risk to their children’s health and condemning the publicity around the report for lowering their home property values.

The dispute is over the Health Department’s handling of its November report, which analyzed hospital and death records for residents of 13 towns around the defunct Vermont Asbestos Group mine on Belvidere Mountain. The report suggests that people who live within a 10-mile radius of the mine are at an increased risk for developing asbestosis. Three deaths and 14 hospitalizations have been linked to asbestos exposure, so far.

The Belvidere Mountain asbestos mine straddles the Vermont towns of Eden and Lowell. Health Department officials are meeting today with residents of Lowell.

Environmental authorities have already spent nearly $2 million for limited asbestos removal at the Vermont mine. The mine was affecting wetlands and streams within a 10 mile radius. The site could cost authorities more than $200 million to clean up, according to recently released reports.

The truth about asbestos

Despite the potentially fatal health consequences associated with asbestos exposure, asbestos is still imported and used in the United States for its insulation properties. The United States imported and used an estimated 1,820 tons of asbestos in 2007, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Government sources estimate that in the next decade more than 35,000 people nationwide will be diagnosed with the deadliest form of asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma. This disease is most often the result of industrial workplace exposure to asbestos – and usually contracted through employers’ blatant disregard for the health and safety of their workers.

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