Working conditions at vermiculite plant included high dust levels

Former employees and visitors to the plant report poor working conditions during the years Libby vermiculite was processed at the plant.

There were approximately 13 workers employed at any one time, with production weeks ranging from 16 hours/day (two shifts), six days a week to 24 hours/day (3 shifts), five days a week in a 52-week year.

Jobs included vermiculite ore manager (shoveling ore into a wheelbarrow and dumping ore into a hopper that fed the furnace), expanded vermiculite bagger, Monokote mixer, Monokote bagger, fork truck driver/truck loader, hopper operator, shift leader, plant manager, and custodian.

The environment inside the plant was very dusty and noisy (personal communication with former worker, internal documents). There were several points during the process where workers were exposed to dusty conditions and Grace records indicate that workers were exposed to high levels of Libby asbestos in the air at the plant (unpublished information from EPA’s database of W.R. Grace documents). This was the case even after dust suppression methods were required in response to industrial hygiene surveys citing severe and excessive dust visible in the plant.

Dust control devices that were implemented in the mid and late 1970s included installation of exhaust vents on the roof and baghouses that performed a filtering function to control dust and emissions, as well as plans to manage spills of waste and product at bagging stations.