Magazine
March 13, 2000
Asbestos-laced dust from a vermiculite mine near Libby, Mont., has caused illness and death among locals for decades, but it is only recently that the media - and victims - have called W.R. Grace & Co. to account.
Feature
Asbestos-laced dust from a vermiculite mine near Libby,
Mont., has caused illness and death among locals for decades, but
it is only recently that the media - and victims - have called W.R.
Grace & Co. to account.
Sidebar
Mine owner W.R. Grace says it's always been frank about
the dangers of asbestos, but former workers and union leaders
disagree, pointing to damning company memos.
Former mine worker Lester Skramstad, who is dying of
asbestos-caused disease, recalls how he and co-workers worked
casually with asbestos, unaware of the danger.
Don Judge of the Montana State AFL-CIO says W.R. Grace is
culpable in the tragedy of asbestos poisoning.
Uncommon Westerners
T.H. Watkins is remembered as "a writer and teacher and
concerned citizen and father and husband and consummate agitator"
whose literature and life revealed a deep love for the
West.
A profile of Catron County, N.M.'s lawyer, Jim Catron,
reveals a man steeped in Celtic and cowboy mythology, and
uncompromising in his anti-government fervor.
Essays
The writer describes her thoughts as she witnessed the
closing arguments of an asbestosis case in Libby,
Montana.
"Maria," an illegal immigrant, is only one among the many
thousands whose work keeps the West going, even as the workers live
in fear of deportation.
A Montana mill owner's plan to send 10,000 shovels to
Elko, Nev., so sagebrush rebels can re-open a road closed by the
Forest Service, is "a triumph of symbolism over substance,"
according to the writer.
Perspective
Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, R, is a popular politician and
a likable man, but environmentalists say his support of shooting
wandering Yellowstone bison shows how weak his environmental record
is.
Heard Around the West
Feces hits fan (and houses) in Utah again; Ariz.
Legislature says state has right to secede, and worries about too
much democracy; Flexcar in Seattle and Portland; golf carts in
Senior Estates, Ore.; Reno billboards; Seattle school toilets save
money.
Dear Friends
Chris Setti and Joint Action in Community Service; HCN
wins Web site award; Ted Smith of Kendall Foundation and Newsweek's
Brook Larmer among visitors.
News
After a 14-hour hearing packed with anti-growth activists,
Garfield County Commissioners vote down Sanders Ranch, a huge
development that would create a new town between Glenwood Springs
and Carbondale.
Rosebud Sioux can't halt hog farm; illegal aliens caught
near Douglas, Ariz.; Yosemite toad and mtn. yellow-legged frog in
danger; Lolo Nat'l Forest, Mont., off-limits to snowmobiles; George
W. Bush promises not to breach Snake River dams.
After an M-44 cyanide trap put on their land by a
government trapper kills the family dog, Paul and Lee-Ann Wright
sue the federal government.
A skyrocketing population of once-uncommon Canada geese
has some locals up-in-arms and ready to try lethal methods to bring
goose numbers under control.
John and Cindy Witzel want to build a school for
outfitters on the 160 acres they own on Oregon's Steens Mountain,
an area also being considered for national monument
status.
In Idaho, sportsmen are divided over a proposed law that
would require hunters to wear blaze orange clothing.
Environmentalists are fighting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service's decision to no longer accept petitions seeking to move
species off the agency's candidates list and up to formal
threatened and endangered status.
Crawford, Colo., rancher Mark Le Valley and other locals
have set up a voluntary conservation plan to protect the Gunnison
sage grouse enough to keep it off the endangered list.
The decline of logging in the Northwest has created a
timber boom in the South, where most timber grows on private lands
and chip mills are increasingly popular.
The Environmental Protection Agency says snowmobiles
should be banned in Yellowstone, at least until cleaner machines
are built, but the Park Service is seeking a less controversial
alternative.
In Montana, a consensus effort between environmental
groups and the Stillwater Mining Co. have stalled over the mine's
insistence that environmental data be kept secret and lawsuits not
allowed.
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber becomes the first major
political figure in the Northwest to back breaching of four Snake
River dams to help endangered salmon.
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