The horrifying true story of the decades-long poisoning of a small town and the definitive expose of asbestos in America--told by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who broke it. Death followed the vermiculite ore from the mine as closely as the asbestos fibers that contaminated it followed it far from Libby. Montana, all across the country to more than three hundred ore processing plants, and further yet, Today, in millions of homes, the hazardous material still rests, in attics and walls, to be sent into air, and lungs, with any disturbance. In Libby, even as the EPA struggles to clean up the toxic mess, some unknown number of the kids who show no sign of illness now, as they ride their bikes down quiet streets, or crowd boisterously into the Pizza Hut after a ball game, will have their lives destroyed by asbestos poisoning. That's what breaks Les Skramstad's heart, and what makes Gayla Benefield madder than a stepped-on snake. -from the Prologue. In a valley in Montana, the U.S. has spent millions of dollars removing toxic residue from a town that had lain pristine for ages. Until the last century, when the dust came down like a snowstorm. That dust turned a paradise into the worst of America's killing fields, a name at the top of the list that includes Love Canal and Woburn. A place now known to be deadlier than all the rest: Libby. An Air That Kills is told through the eyes of the men and women who fought back--among them, a woman who watched more than forty members of her family succumb to asbestos; a miner who worked there and carried the poison home; and an EPA investigator who battled not only one of the world's most powerful corporations but also his superiors inWashington. It is the first book to reveal how deeply asbestos has embedded itself into the texture of America: how many people have died or are dying; how the industry and government repeatedly ignored the danger; and how, for many Americans, the dying is not over. It is a suspense story with real American heroes at its heart and one of the most importants works of environmental journalism in years.

Journalists Schneider and McCumber conducted 640 interviews and did plenty of archival work to construct this account of how residents of Libby, Montana, along with a few crusaders from outside, fought to have the mining stopped, the long slow disaster investigated, the town cleaned up as well as possible, and the people who would be dying attended to. They also explore problems that could be affecting millions of Americans, such as asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from Libby in basements and attics, and contamination in and near ore-processing plants around the country, as well as EPA (and White House) pretense about asbestos exposure at Ground Zero in New York City, among other topics.
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The horrifying true story of the decades-long poisoning of a small town and the definitive exposof asbestos in America-told by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who broke it.

In a valley in Montana, the U.S. has spent millions of dollars removing toxic residue from a town that had lain pristine for ages. Until the last century, when the dust came down like a snowstorm. That dust turned a paradise into the worst of America's killing fields, a name at the top of the list that includes Love Canal and Woburn. A place now known to be deadlier than all the rest: Libby.

An Air That Kills is told through the eyes of the men and women who fought back-among them, a woman who watched more than forty members of her family succumb to asbestos; a miner who worked there and carried the poison home; and an EPA investigator who battled not only one of the world's most powerful corporations but also his superiors in Washington. It is the first book to reveal how deeply asbestos has embedded itself into the texture of America: how many people have died or are dying; how the industry and government repeatedly ignored the danger; and how, for many Americans, the dying is not over. It is a suspense story with real American heroes at its heart and one of the most importants works of environmental journalism in years.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [409]-429) and index.

Andrew Schneider is the deputy assistant managing editor for investigation for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Among his numerous prizes are two Pulitzers.