Asbestos

Day 4 – Today we went to the LAB Crysotile Asbestos Mine in Thetford Mines Quebec. We were given an overview of the operations, and then went down into the mine. It is an open pit mine. We were not able to get all the way down, since they recently had rock slides. We were about 400 feet down (the pit is 1200 feet deep) and were able to see the workers digging rock out of the pit, putting it in dump trucks, and hauling the rock out of the mine. We went in to see the milling operations, packaging, and warehousing of the asbestos product.

The vast majority of asbestos is shipped to Asia, with a few percent of their product being used in Canada, and almost none to the US.

We are heading back to the US, and will stay in Glens Falls, NY. Tomorrow we will visit with EPA to learn about the Hudson River PCB cleanup.