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Miners' search for gold led to vermiculite
Thursday, November 18, 1999
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER
Prospectors first put pick and shovel to Zonolite Mountain 119 years ago.
Many mining-claim records are missing or illegible, but what can be made out indicates that in 1881, Robert Rannie and his partner, while searching for gold along a creek, dug a 40-foot-long shaft following a vein of quartz.
Thirty-eight years later, Edward Alley, a part-time miner and the owner of the Libby Hotel, stood in the same partially collapsed shaft. As he moved his flaming torch around the dark hole, the flame, glittering off mica-like crystals, brushed the top of the shaft. Popping sounds echoed off the walls, and he noticed that the sparkly material, heated by the flame, had expanded into large puffy clusters, weighing next to nothing.
Scientists told him that it wasn't mica, but a little-known substance called vermiculite. Alley, a survivor of the Spanish-American War who had taken a couple of geology classes at the University of Nebraska, named it Zonolite.
"The raw material is but two feet under the cover of soil and to a depth of 150 feet," Alley said. "We've got a mountain of it."
Government scientists in Washington, D.C., told him he had something unique and valuable.
The chief mineral technologist at the U.S. Bureau of Mines called the expansion of the vermiculite the most remarkable phenomenon he had ever witnessed.
By 1924, Alley had built a primitive roasting kiln that produced four tons of Zonolite a day.
On March 25, 1925, Great Northern Railroad shipped the first boxcar of Zonolite from Libby to a Hillsboro, Ohio, company that used it to insulate bank vaults, office safes and filing cabinets. Also that year, a New York company developed a method of using Zonolite to make building boards at half the weight and twice the strength of wood. And a Billings, Mont., firm developed a new "permanent" roofing material using 70 percent Zonolite and 30 percent asphalt. They claimed it was fireproof and would "last forever."
Later that year Alley sold his hotel and several other properties in Libby and mortgaged his ranch to increase the size of the operation. By mid-1926, he was running a much larger plant, producing up to 100 tons a day.
The process was simple. The vermiculite ore was stripped from the top of the mountain and hauled in huge trucks to a mill, where it was separated into various commercial sizes through a dusty screening system. Some of the ore was shipped untouched. Other material was sent to an expansion plant, where it was run through ovens at about 2,000 degrees, causing it to "pop" to 15 times its size.
Before Alley died in 1935, he shepherded the obscure mineral into thousands of products being sold around the world.
In 1939, Zonolite merged with another company mining the bottom of the hill and became the Universal Zonolite Insulation Co. Nine years later the name was changed to the Zonolite Co.
In 1963, the company was sold to W.R. Grace and Co. Very quickly, Grace expanded the operation and increased production.
Through the '60s, '70s and '80s, a near-continuous line of Burlington Northern rail cars hauled millions of tons of the vermiculite ore to Grace plants and other companies in 30 states and six foreign countries. The featherweight material was showing up in dozens of new products, from lawn fertilizer to fireproofing.
Over the years, 1,898 men and women worked at the mine, as many as 332 at any one time, working two and sometimes three shifts a day. At times, the miners were the best-paid workers in town.
Almost 80 percent of the world's vermiculite came from Libby. The rest came from South Africa and another Grace mine in South Carolina. The workers were proud of what they were accomplishing. In the history of the company there was only one strike. It lasted 27 days.
In 1990, when Grace closed the mine citing economic reasons, company documents contained estimates that "another 80 or 100 years worth of vermiculite can be pulled out of that mountain."
In 1994, Grace sold the property to three men -- two local loggers and Jack Wolters, formerly vice president of Grace's construction products division. Plans for the 4,000-acre site have not been decided, said Mark Owens, one of the trio and a third-generation logger.
"We're not really sure what we're going to do," Owens says. "We may log and reforest it, perhaps build a wildlife area or maybe some type of development."
Asked if his group might mine the mountain again, he would only say, "There's a lot of ore left in that hill."
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
When he held the flame beneath them, the clusters did not burn.
This company photo from the early 1970s shows the W.R. Grace vermiculite mine.
Day 1
· A town left to die
· It all started with the search for gold
· The History of W.R. Grace Co.
· Dangers of asbestos exposure
· Known deaths from tremolite from Libby mine (graphic)
Day 2
· While people are dying, government agencies pass buck
· 'No one ever told us that stuff could kill you'
· Libby's lost miners: A gallery
· Group organizes to help victims
(newest at top)
· W.R. Grace to pay record Superfund fine
· Finally, asbestos-plagued Libby, Mont., to get help
· Up to 30% tested in Libby hurt by asbestos
· W.R. Grace files for bankruptcy
· Labor Dept. enters Libby's asbestos fight
· Why did dying miners get no help?
· Health warning on attic asbestos
· W.R. Grace buys its old Libby mine, then bans EPA investigators from it
· Grace backs off pledge to clean up asbestos
· Grace sends papers to EPA -- reportedly tainted
· A small group of physicians is trying to change the course of asbestos-induced disease
· One victim's story: '(I) couldn't get a breath; it scared me to death almost' · Horseman in the race of his life
· Class-action suit targets Grace Co., insulation
· Mine-safety agency takes action
· Immediate cleanup sought in mining town
· Grace to pick up medical bills in tainted town
· Asbestos study is expanded nationwide
· Deadly ore was shipped around U.S., Canada
· Just 23 months hauling ore--and it killed him 36 years later
· Finally, asbestos victims have their say
· Initial tests reveal areas of asbestos in and around Libby
· Montana's governor knows asbestos danger
· State, federal authorities sending teams to Montana mining town
· Editorial: Libby folks must get some answers
· EPA sues for access to Libby vermiculite mine
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