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Vermont Plagued by Old Asbestos Mine
By asbestoshub | January 13, 2009
The results of a November 2008 report that analyzed hospital and death records for residents of 13 towns around the now-closed asbestos mine on Belvidere Mountain near Eden, Vermont, strongly suggest an increased risk of asbestos diseases and death among those who live near the mine. Asbestos was mined in Vermont for almost 100 years.
Health officials are going to Eden and Lowell in early January 2009 to discuss a report linking lung disease to people who lived in the towns closest to the mine. Some residents are angry; others dismiss the idea that there is a health risk.
“My father is 90 years old and he worked there for years. As kids, we used to play in the piles of rock. The dust would be all around us,” said Lowell Selectman Alden Warner, 56. “Waste from the mine was used to resurface dozens of miles of local roads,” he said.
Mr. Warner has clearly never heard of Libby, Montana.
The Health Department report received media coverage in Vermont, and here at AsbestosHUB of course. Some residents responded with anxiety that their children’s health might be at continued risk. Others, like Whitcomb, were angry. They say the publicity is lowering their property values, making it more difficult to sell their homes and attract tourists.
Health Department officials linked residence in 13 towns to an increased risk of cancer. They later withdrew that conclusion, saying it had wrongly included death and hospital records from Newport City.
The study, which was a statistical analysis, did not attempt to investigate how individual patients might have been exposed to asbestos, beyond identifying some of those who died as former mine workers.
Fourteen hospital discharges and five deaths from asbestosis (two of those deaths were of former mine workers) were identified. Those numbers would be insignificant if applied to a larger metropolitan area; but in a hamlet of small towns in Vermont, that’s a lot.
Health Commissioner Wendy Davis said she hopes at the meetings to explain the report in language people can understand. Then she’ll ask residents what additional information they would like the department to gather. How about skipping the questions and proceeding to a cleanup on aisle 4?
The numbers are admittedly small, but when I look at the magnitude, the odds of having this diagnosis (of asbestosis) is three times what it would be if you didn’t have that geographic exposure,” she said.
We don’t know if the (patients) were those who tended to hike and recreate on the mine property, or had other risk factors for the disease,” she said. “We want to know what people are worried about.
Fresh air perhaps?
Whitcomb, the Eden resident, said he’ll be at the meeting to express his anger about the cancer scare and about the effect on property values. His message?
“They should get out of here and leave us alone,” he said.
Topics: Exposure |
