Trial to begin against Buffett’s railroad company over asbestos deaths in Montana town [Video]

HELENA, Mont. – A trial begins Monday against Warren Buffett’s BNSF Railway over the lung cancer deaths of two people who lived in a small Montana town near the U.S.-Canada border where thousands of people were exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine.

The widespread contamination over decades led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2009 to declare the first-ever public health emergency during a Superfund cleanup. The site is one of the deadliest under the program.

The W.R. Grace & Co. mine near Libby, Montana, produced contaminated vermiculite that exposed residents to asbestos, sickening thousands and leading to the deaths of hundreds.

The estates of Thomas Wells of LaConner, Oregon, and Joyce Walder of Westminster, California, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2021, arguing that BNSF and its corporate predecessors stored asbestos-laden vermiculite in a large rail yardin town before shipping it to plants across the U.S. where it was heated to expand it for use …