The Environmental Protection Agency released a long awaited health risk study Monday that will help guide cleanup of more of the asbestos dust found in the Libby area.

Hundreds of Libby residents died, and even more were sickened by asbestos contamination from a now-closed W.R. Grace vermiculite mine and processing plant.

EPA says years of asbestos cleanup efforts are paying off in the northwest Montana town.

Dr. Deborah McKean is EPA toxicologist.

"EPA has spent a great deal of time doing cleanups in town," said McKean. "Both inside homes and in yards and many businesses around town. Now the air is significantly cleaner than when the mine had been operating from the early '60's to 1990."

The agency reports Libby's asbestos air concentrations today are 100,000 times lower than when Grace's mine and processing facilities were operating. McKean says Libby's air quality is now similar to other Montana cities including Helena and Eureka.

The news, however, is not all good. EPA's draft health risk assessment notes exposure to even a small amount of asbestos can cause lung problems.

Gayla Benefield is a lifelong Libby resident and asbestos activist who led the charge against W.R. Grace.

"I do believe the air quality is definitely better in Libby," said Benefield. "They have improved that considerably since the mine shut down and the areas that were so terribly polluted have been cleaned up."

EPA points out there's no way to remove all of the particularly dangerous Amphibole asbestos which occurs naturally in the Libby area. And that worries the 71-year-old Benefield, who herself suffers from asbestos-related lung problems. She wants to see even more thorough asbestos clean-ups.

"They would leave the carpets in the house and consider it clean, but if those carpets are pulled up, the fiber's trapped under the carpet," said Benefield. "If the house is sold, the next person is going to encounter this. I don't think it's close to anywhere where it should be. We won't know that for 30 or 40 years."

EPA used lung scarring, not deaths, as a way to determine the risk of local exposure. That benchmark drew fire from industry groups, including W.R. Grace, who say that was an unjustifiably low threshold to determine exposure.

Agency Toxicoligist Deborah McKean says that criticism is misguided. She says a lot of work went into the health risk study that was eight years in the making.

"This one has indeed taken a long time, but we've done a great deal of work," said McKean. "We've gone through a number of review cycles including an independent science advisory board review. We've done this work to ensure the best-quality science has been used and that the number has received sufficient levels of review to ensure that the decisions that we make have the highest standards."

Libby resident Gayla Benefield says some good has come from this terrible situation; for instance, she says research on local residents has broadened scientific understanding of asbestos related diseases.

That said, she's bothered by residents who continue to say Libby's still stigmatized.

"The stigma is not the asbestos," said Benefield. "The stigma is the people here who still call it a 'stigma.' So many people have moved into our community over the past 10 or 12 years [and] they aren't afraid of this They say, 'well, they're trying to clean it up, we know what it is.' I think the stigma are still the people who like to have a black cloud over their head and say; 'Oh, poor us we've got a stigma. Bring us some more federal money.'"

EPA will hold the first of three public hearings about the risk study Tuesday evening from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the City of Libby's Ponderosa Room.

Read the EPA's Site-wide Human Health Risk Assessment Fact Sheet or read the entire Libby Asbestos Draft Site-wide Human Health Risk Assessment