Wasting Libby : The True Story of How the WR Grace Corporation Left a Montana Town to Die (and Got Away with It)

Wasting Libby chronicles the heart-wrenching story of a small Montana town where the W.R. Grace Company (of A Civil Action notoriety) ran a vermiculite mine that supplied the world with insulation, fireproofing and gardening materials for nearly 30 years. But Grace's vermiculite was laced with a virulent form of asbestos, and in its quest for profits the company betrayed this rural community, spreading a legacy of death and disease from northwestern Montana to the World Trade Center, through more than 35 million buildings in the United States estimated to have been insulated with Grace's lethal ore.

Andrea Peacock is a Montana-based journalist who has covered western environmental news and politics since 1991. She is the co-author, with her husband Doug Peacock, of The Essential Grizzly. In 2010, she was awarded a fellowship with the Alicia Patterson Foundation.