[URBAN NOTE] "Quebec town of Asbestos turning page on rocky past"
What hope does the Québec minng town of Asbestos have after the end of asbestos? The Toronto Star's Allan Woods takes a look.
For more than a century, the story of the Quebec town of Asbestos was the story of the riches locked beneath its soil.
It used to be a worthless rocky hill. But when they started cutting into the rock in 1879 to get at the tough, fibrous and fire-resistant substance used in brake pads, pipes and building insulation, that hill turned into a stunning scar that grew ever wider and deeper.
The open pit Jeffrey Mine marked the city with its toxic name, but it also ate the city on its way to becoming one of the biggest such sites in the world. With every expansion, the mine swallowed streets, houses, businesses, churches, schools and hospitals.
Each time it was a small sacrifice for the mine’s owners and its well-paid workers to get at the wealth - right up until those sickened by asbestos started to turn against a wonder product sought and used around the world.
As studies funded by the Canadian Cancer Society found asbestos exposure kills more than 2,000 people in Canada each year, the shift in public opinion was brutal.
And there was neither celebration nor desolation in this town of 7,000 as the federal government announced last week it would ban all asbestos use in Canada by 2018.
For more than a century, the story of the Quebec town of Asbestos was the story of the riches locked beneath its soil.
It used to be a worthless rocky hill. But when they started cutting into the rock in 1879 to get at the tough, fibrous and fire-resistant substance used in brake pads, pipes and building insulation, that hill turned into a stunning scar that grew ever wider and deeper.
The open pit Jeffrey Mine marked the city with its toxic name, but it also ate the city on its way to becoming one of the biggest such sites in the world. With every expansion, the mine swallowed streets, houses, businesses, churches, schools and hospitals.
Each time it was a small sacrifice for the mine’s owners and its well-paid workers to get at the wealth - right up until those sickened by asbestos started to turn against a wonder product sought and used around the world.
As studies funded by the Canadian Cancer Society found asbestos exposure kills more than 2,000 people in Canada each year, the shift in public opinion was brutal.
And there was neither celebration nor desolation in this town of 7,000 as the federal government announced last week it would ban all asbestos use in Canada by 2018.