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Grace Executives Plead Innocent in Huge Montana Asbestos Case
n a lawyer-lined Missoula courtroom today, W.R. Grace and seven current and former executives pleaded not guilty to putting the community of Libby, Montana in danger by hiding the fact that their vermiculite mining operation could be fatal to employees and residents.
The indictment, unsealed on Feb. 7, reads like a Charles Dickens tale of heartless capitalists preying upon helpless workers and residents. The evil ones even tricked people into putting poisonous materials in schools and playgrounds! If even a fraction of what's alleged in the indictments is proven in court, there won't be much sympathy for the defendants.
Indeed, there are undoutedly more than a few bad guys to be found in the sad saga of Libby, where some 1,200 people now suffer from asbestos-related illness and a $55 million Superfund cleanup has done little to reverse the town's fortunes. But as the Missoulian reported, even some in Libby wonder whether the local Grace managers who now face prison time - especially former mine manager Alan Stringer - are really the guilty ones.
And if there are good guys in this story, it's not the would-be white knights at the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency, who brought the indictments. Rather it would be the folks at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and especially reporter Andrew Schneider, who uncovered the horrific scandal back in 1999 and made it a national story that forced the government to take action.
http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/235/
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