"BILLINGS, Mont. -- Federal regulators knew potentially contaminated bark and wood chips were being sold from a Superfund site in the asbestos-tainted town of Libby, Mont., for three years before they stopped the practice, according to a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus.

The Democrat asked for an investigation into the contaminated scrap piles at a defunct timber mill in response to an Associated Press story earlier this month that detailed how the wood chips and bark had been widely used as landscaping material by residents and government officials.

Asbestos from a W.R. Grace mine in Libby has killed an estimated 400 people."

Matthew Brown reports for the Associated Press July 19, 2011. [2]