Little risk for home gardeners, EPA says

Home gardeners face little risk of getting cancer or other asbestos-related diseases from occasional use of products containing vermiculite, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a report released yesterday.

But consumer groups criticized the agency's action, saying even a potential risk should be avoided, and the products should be labeled.

"Asbestos has no place at all in gardening products," said Alison Wise, an advocate for the Washington State Public Interest Research Group, a non-profit consumer advocacy group. "The EPA's responsibility is to protect consumers from toxins, not rationalize why they should remain."

The EPA report found trace amounts of asbestos in 17 of 38 gardening products tested, including measurable amounts in five of those products.

But the report also said the health risk to consumers was low.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said yesterday it had "nothing to add to what the EPA has said. We concur that the potential exposure to consumers seems too low to be a hazard," said CPSC spokesman Russ Rader. "It appears that the primary danger EPA found was the risk to workers using vermiculite and OSHA will be addressing that."

But that didn't satisfy some consumer advocates.

"The government needs to stop passing the buck on this," said Jon Stier, attorney with the National Environmental Law Center in Seattle. "Both the EPA and the CPSC appear to have jurisdiction on these issues. They need to get together and start protecting the public."

Other advocates said consumers have a right to know what's in the products they buy.

"At a minimum they should be labeled so consumers can make a choice," said Rachel Weintraub, staff attorney for WashPIRG's national lobbying office in Washington, D.C. The EPA report stressed that consumers were unlikely to get enough exposure to pose a health risk.

"These levels were very low and do not pose signficant health risks," Susan Wayland, acting assistant administrator of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic substances for the EPA, said in a statement. "However, we feel it is important for consumers to be armed with this information when making their decisions."

At the same time, however, the EPA recommended that consumers use premixed potting soils, which are moist and less likely to generate dust, instead of mixing their own using straight vermiculite.

In addition, the EPA suggested consumers could use alternatives, including peat, sawdust, perlite or bark instead of vermiculite as a soil supplement. Vermiculite is used to add lightness to soil and retain moisture.

Gardeners using straight vermiculite should keep it damp, use it in a well-ventilated area and avoid getting the dust on their clothing, the report said.

The report also concluded that consumers have no way of knowing which vermiculite products are contaminated with asbestos.

Even those products that test negative in one sample may contain asbestos because the asbestos may be distributed unevenly throughout the product, investigators said.

At least one garden-products company said it was re-evaluating its products based on the EPA's report.

"Based on the information we've had up until this report and on our own independent testing, we had nothing to be concerned about," said Robert Weaver, public relations director for the Schultz Co. in St. Louis.

The national portion of the EPA report found asbestos at a level that could pose a potential for exposure in five products, including Schultz's Horticultural Vermiculite. The other products with measurable asbestos were Earthgro's Best Vermiculite, Hoffman's Vermiculite and two samples of Ace Horticultural Grade Vermiculite. In addition, 17 others contained trace levels of asbestos.

"We will be re-evaluating and looking at this report and looking at our vermiculite product again," Weaver said.

"If the report indicates some situation other than what we've been aware of in the past, then we'll retest."

The Scotts Co., which is the largest supplier of consumer lawn and garden products in the country, said yesterday that its products are safe.

"We test for asbestos, and it's not there," said Kerry Bierman , vice president corporate communications for the Scotts Co., headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

The company gets its vermiculite from Virginia Vermiculite and W.R. Grace Co.'s South Carolina mine.

"We're very confident that our products are safe," Bierman said.

A spokesman for W.R. Grace & Co., which supplies vermiculite to a number of garden products companies, said, "Fundamentally, Grace is pleased the EPA concluded there is no significant problem with the horticultural products."

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