BILLINGS, Mont. ? Test results from huge piles of woodchips that were being sold from a Montana Superfund site for use in landscaping show they contain some asbestos, but at levels so low federal officials said they measured no danger to humans.
The results obtained Friday by The Associated Press appear to offer a rare bit of relief for the town of Libby, where widespread asbestos contamination has killed an estimated 400 people and sickened 1,750.
The tests followed concerns raised by residents, local officials and business owners who bought loads of the wood chips to spread around their homes, in parks and for use as erosion control. Thousands of tons were shipped out of the Libby area, and the sales went on for years before federal regulators stepped in last year to halt the practice.
But the new results from the Environmental Protection Agency found no asbestos in air tests designed to mimic human exposure from spreading the wood chips. The agency said a "very low level" of asbestos was found in one of 15 chip samples.
"It was all good news," said Rebecca Thomas of the EPA's regional headquarters in Denver. "There simply is no measured exposure."
It remained uncertain whether sale of the wood chips will resume. The head of the local economic development agency that was selling the material cited lingering uncertainties over the dangers posed by Libby's asbestos because the EPA has yet to complete its risk assessment for the town.
Initial results from that pending study on the toxicity of Libby asbestos has found even minute amounts of the asbestos fibers can cause non-cancerous illnesses.
"We might not allow it to be taken until the final results are out on the tox study," said Paul Rummelhart, executive director of the Kootenai River Development Co., which controls the abandoned timber mill that contains the sprawling, open-air piles of wood chips.
Libby councilman and landscaping business owner Allen Olsen said he won't use the wood chips despite the results.
Olsen, who used the material by the truckload in the past, said he has developed a mistrust of the EPA in the decade that it has overseen the cleanup in Libby that cost more than $370 million to date.
"I absolutely, positively will not sell it or let a person have any of it," Olsen said Friday. "There's just been too many controversies."
Samples of the wood chips and bark were first collected in 2007, and subsequent tests found asbestos in four of 20 samples analyzed under an electron microscope. The EPA at the time did not attempt to quantify how much asbestos was present.
The AP reported last July that more than 15,000 tons of the chips and bark were sold or distributed and much of that material shipped across the country, despite evidence it contained an unknown level of asbestos.
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