Northshore Mining has asked a federal judge in St. Paul to overturn or clarify a long-time rule intended to protect communities on the shores of Lake Superior from asbestos exposure. The company’s Silver Bay plant has taconite pellets shipped in, then crushes the pellets and extracts iron with large magnets. The taconite also contains asbestos fibers, and when it is crushed, asbestos fibers can be released into the air. In the 1970s, a federal appeals court established a limit on the plant’s asbestos emissions by using the level of airborne asbestos in St. Paul as a benchmark: the level of asbestos in the air in Silver Bay can contain no more asbestos than the air in St. Paul. Over time, the level of airborne asbestos in Silver Bay has fallen significantly because of new technologies and decreased activity at the plant, but the level in St. Paul has fallen even lower. Northshore Mining has been told it must further reduce asbestos releases to avoid an enforcement action. But Northshore Mining has brought a new lawsuit arguing that the standard was meant to be temporary and should no longer apply. The Attorney Generals of Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice and a variety of environmental groups, oppose any change, saying it would put the residents of Silver Bay at risk for mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. They also point to the incidence of mesothelioma among taconite miners to say now is not the time to raise exposures to asbestos in taconite. The federal judge, however, has indicated that the case may not be appropriate for federal court, but may instead need to be be brought in state court, because the level of asbestos released is part of the state permitting process.
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