Epa Launches Insulation Education Campaign

The EPA is embarking on a new public education campaign about the dangers of vermiculite insulation. Much of the attic insulation was made with ore that is contaminated with asbestos. Critics say the EPA waited longer than it should have to notify the public. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

The EPA is embarking on a new public education campaign about the dangers of vermiculite
insulation. Much of the attic insulation was made with ore that is contaminated with asbestos.
Critics say the EPA waited longer than it should have to notify the public. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


The loose silvery brown insulation is
found in the attics of many homes built in the
60’s, 70’s, and
80’s. The mine where the tainted
vermiculite came from was shut down
13 years ago, after miners began
falling ill and dying. But it wasn’t until this month that
the EPA warned
homeowners that vermiculite insulation is dangerous and should be avoided.


Andrew Schneider is a reporter at the St. Louis Post Dispatch. He broke a story last year that the
White House had directed the EPA not to issue a public warning. But Schneider says the EPA
came under even more pressure from other places.


“A lot of it came not just from the press hammering away at them, but really good people within
the EPA who were raising hell with their own administrators.”


The EPA will distribute notices to hardware stores and state agencies, telling people how to
identify the insulation and to stay away from it. Removal should only be done by professionals.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Report Finds White House Blocked Asbestos Warning

A recent newspaper report says that the White House stopped the EPA from issuing a warning about widespread asbestos-contaminated insulation last spring. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

A recent newspaper report says that the White House stopped the
EPA from issuing a warning about widespread asbestos-contaminated
insulation last spring. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:


Zonolite insulation was produced in this country from the 1940’s through
the 1990’s, and almost all of it was made from ore that came from one mine
in Libby, Montana. Thousands of miners were killed or sickened because
the ore was contaminated with an extremely lethal asbestos fiber.


But it was only last year that the EPA decided to issue a public health
emergency warning to residents and workers who could come in contact with
Zonolite insulation in homes where it had been installed.


A St. Louis Post Dispatch investigation revealed that the White House Office of
Management and Budget intervened, and the EPA never issued the warning.
The Post Dispatch reports that EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman was
outraged by the decision.


Hundreds of thousands of homes in Michigan and Illinois probably have
Zonolite insulation. The insulation is often strewn loose in attics.
It’s silvery-brown and comes in feather-light pieces ranging from the size
of a pea to the size of a nickel.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.