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Playing with asbestos in Ellwood City: Town's illness rates being scrutinized
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Playing with asbestos in Ellwood City: Town's illness rates being scrutinized
Saturday, March 18, 2006
By Mike Bucsko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
ELLWOOD CITY - Growing up in the west end of town during the 1960s, Keith Foley and dozens of other kids spent every summer day at a playground near a plant owned by W.R.
Grace and Co.
The playground had a baseball field and a patch of grass the kids used for football, along with the usual swing sets and monkey bars.
But the playground also had a component unique to its location, silver-colored rocks and gravel, which were byproducts of a material produced at the Grace plant.
"We all joked about it growing up," said Mr.
Foley, 50, who now lives in Wayne, in another part of Lawrence County.
"We went home every day dusty and dirty and, when it was raining, we went home looking like the Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz," covered with silver muck."
In September, federal officials distributed a health alert to people in Ellwood City about the potential harm from asbestos exposure from the waste rocks discarded by the Grace plant.
The ...
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