Stansbury Holdings Corporation
________________________________________________________________________
Aldine J. Coffman, Jr. Chairman, President and
P.O. Box 370010, Denver, CO 80237-0010 Chief Executive Officer
8801 East Hampden Avenue #200 Telephone: (720) 748-1407
Denver, Colorado 80231 Facsimile: (720) 748-1408
Website: stansburyholdings.com
E-mail: ajcoffman@earthlink.net
________________________________________________________________________
April 26, 2000
To the Residents of Beaverhead County, Montana
Subject: The Operation of the Elk Gulch Vermiculite Mine and Mill
Located About 15 Miles Southeast of the Town of Dillon
Stansbury Holdings Corporation acquired last year the entity known as Dillon Vermiculite LLC, which is the owner of the Elk Gulch Vermiculite Mine (unpatented lode mining claims) and Mill, located primarily in Sections 1 and 2, Township 9 South, Range 7 West, in Beaverhead County, with a very small overlap of some claims into Madison County.
As a corporate citizen of the greater Dillon community, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Stansbury to you, and to explain to you its present level of activity, and our future planned activities, for this project.
Stansbury is a Utah corporation, founded in 1969, and has been publicly traded for most of its 30 plus years. It is currently traded on the Nasdaq Electronic Bulletin Board under the symbol ?STBY?.
We maintain a website, stansburyholdings.com, which has links to our SEC filings, financial statement, photographs of operations, and general project descriptions, and we invite you to visit that website.
Stansbury has been involved in Montana vermiculite since 1985, when it acquired the Hamilton Vermiculite Project about ten miles east of Hamilton, which it still owns. In the late 1980?s and early 1990?s, Stansbury funded and pioneered the studies that set the standards for sampling and assaying vermiculite ores for any potential asbestos contamination. The Environmental Impact Study (?EIS?) had been required under the same level of public pressure from the events at Libby, Montana, as we are experiencing today.
In the final version of the 1993 Hamilton EIS, appendix A detailed the Health Risk Analysis. The discussions and conclusions are stated in Section 5 of that appendix, as the health risk from asbestos applies to the Hamilton project, and the following quotations respecting potential asbestos exposure and risk of disease therefrom, are worth noting:
The average level?projected for Hamilton is more than 1,000,000 smaller than the current OSHA standard for the workplace. There is no scientific evidence to indicate that such low levels pose any risk of disease.
For example, the risk to a non-smoker exposed for 20 years at levels estimated for Hamilton is 0.012 per million, or 1.2 per 100 million. This means that if 100,000,000 persons ?were exposed to this level, one cancer would be expected as a result of the exposure, compared to about 30 million total cancers that are expected to occur anyway in this population.
Based on the results of the health risk assessment, the likelihood of adverse effects from asbestos exposure are expected to be extremely remote.
At an altitude of 7,000 feet (the approximate elevation of the Stansbury mine site), exposure to cosmic radiation is about 63 milllirem (mrem) per year, or 0.17 mrem per day. The risk of skin cancer from exposure for one day at this level? is 10 times great than the estimated risk in Hamilton from exposure to asbestos from the Stansbury mine for 20 years.
Based upon 1988 highway statistics for Montana.., the risk of cancer from continuous exposure for 20 years in Hamilton to asbestos from the Stansbury mine?, is equal to risk of being killed whiling riding 5 miles in an automobile on Montana highways.
The Committee on Nonoccupational Health Risks of Asbestiform Structures of the National Research Council?{established}? the approximate average level of (?asbestos exposure?) that the general public might encounter. This level is 8000 times higher than the average level in Hamilton that is projected to result from the Stansbury mine.
In preparing the risk assessment, several assumptions were made that skewered the statistics in favor of the risk, especially as to health hazards of non-fibrous and non-asbestos forms of actinolite and other minerals. If such assumptions are inaccurate, as they are now viewed, the report states that ?? the health risk estimates presented in this health risk assessment are likely to be even lower?.
Copies of the Hamilton EIS quoted above may be found in the Hamilton BLM Field Office, the Missoula US Forest Service Office, and the Montana DEQ. Stansbury is having copies of the Hamilton EIS copied and placed for reading the town library in Dillon. (The copies of the Dillon Project Environmental Assessment are available from the Dillon BLM Field Office).
I am mindful that the Dillon Vermiculite Project is not the Hamilton Project addressed in the EIS. However, there are a number of protocols established in the Hamilton EIS process that have become industry standards for sampling and assaying vermiculite and vermiculite ores for their respective asbestos content.
These industry standard protocols were followed over by the prior owner of the Dillon Vermiculite Project, and its assay results were provided to the DEQ and BLM at the time of the Environmental Assessment for the Dillon Vermiculite Project was being addressed. Additional material, in the way of assays taken by prior owners, has been located, and that has likewise been provided to the DEQ and BLM.
The results of these assays establish that the Dillon Vermiculite Project is the equivalent of Hamilton, and like Hamilton, greatly different from, the Libby vermiculite operation.
Stansbury takes pride that it was the party that caused the establishment of these protocols, and funded through the EIS process the technology that has been a decade long standard for this industry.
Recent articles (in the fall of 1999) in newspapers in the State of Washington have revived public interest in the Libby vermiculite and its attendant asbestos problem, and have invariably caused an awakening of concern with respect to the development of other vermiculite deposits in Montana. This concern prompted to the DEQ and BLM to re-open and extend the comment period for the health risk portion of the Dillon Vermiculite Project Environmental Analysis, which is now open for public comment through May 15, 2000.
Stansbury has taken the initiative again to establish international protocols and standards for the vermiculite industry in connection with the sampling and assaying of vermiculite products and vermiculite ore for any asbestos contamination which represents a health risk to miners, mill employees, residents of the mine and mill area, and the users of the vermiculite products. We have enclosed a recent press release which details that effort.
We do not believe that the Dillon Vermiculite Project presents any asbestos related health risk to the residents of Beaverhead County, or to our project employees. However, we are dedicated to utilizing the latest technology to continually assess this risk, and to protect the community and our employees from it.
Our products will have no acceptance in the marketplace, unless they are certifiable free of any asbestos health risk contamination, and so our whole corporate survival depends upon our being accurate and fair in characterizing our mining and milling efforts, and our resulting products, as free of any asbestos contamination.
We plan to present to the DEQ and BLM the report from the consulting firm, on or about May 15. The consulting group is engaged to make that report in person, in the town of Dillon, at a meeting before the town and county officials, and such of the public as may be invited. Copies of the report will be available to the public, and will constitute our formal response, as the owner of the applicant Dillon Vermiculite LLC, to the re-opened comment period.
If you plan to respond to the DEQ and BLM, please feel free to provide us with a copy of your response. We also welcome your comments in planning for the future of our project and its impact on your community.
Respectfully,
Aldine J. Coffman, Jr.
Chairman, President and
Chief Executive Officer |
