EPA Knew About Montana Contamination (for 3 years)

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Federal regulators knew potentially contaminated bark and wood chips were being sold from a Superfund site in the asbestos-tainted town of Libby, Mont., for three years before they stopped the practice.
That revelation comes in a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus.

The EPA found asbestos in the piles in 2007 but never quantified how much. The wood chips and bark were used in landscaping by local residents until sales were halted in March.

The EPA previously said it learned the material was being sold last fall. But in a July 14 letter to Baucus, the agency acknowledges it knew of the sales since at least October 2007.

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