"Superfund: A Philadelphia Suburb's Asbestos Nightmare"

"AMBLER, Pa. -- U.S. EPA's Greg Voigt opens a chain-link gate, pushes aside waist-high weeds and scrambles to the highest point in this Philadelphia suburb: a 100-foot pile of industrial waste.

'Check out the million-dollar view,' Voigt jokes as he looks out from a gravel plateau covering asbestos mounds he monitors for EPA's Superfund program.

Welcome to the 'White Mountains of Ambler.' Less than 20 miles from this week's Democratic National Convention, the tree-shrouded toxic landmark is a reminder of this town's past as the asbestos manufacturing capital of the world.

Asbestos -- building insulation material largely banned by EPA since the 1970s because of its link to mesothelioma, a lung cancer -- made Ambler a thriving blue-collar hamlet for three-quarters of a century EPA has spent the past 30 years cleaning up and monitoring its two Superfund sites, which take up more than 50 acres here."

George Cahlink reports for Greenwire July 27, 2016.