Georgia Pacific/Bestwall, 200 State Street, Sigurd, Utah
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EPA
Region		 Location of facility Type of facility Amount
of ore
received
(in tons)		 Did
EPA
visit
the
site?		 Were
samples
taken?		 Results of
evaluation
8 200 South State Street, Sigurd, Utah Gypsum board manufacturer 2,700 Yes-May 23, 2000 Yes According to an EPA database compiled from W.R. Grace shipping invoices, 2,700 tons of vermiculite ore from the Libby mine were shipped to this site between February 1967 and February 1985. EPA visited this site with an official from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. According to a Georgia Pacific representative, the facility had been built in the 1950s and had been owned by other drywall companies over the years, including Bestwall. Georgia Pacific added vermiculite to some of its plaster and wallboard products to help make them fire resistant. The facility received vermiculite by truck in 50-pound bags, although for a period of time, the company switched to bulk delivery, but then switched back to bags. At the time of EPA's visit, the company received vermiculite from a W.R. Grace facility in Enoree, South Carolina. (This Enoree site is listed separately in this database.) The bags of vermiculite were stored in one of two buildings before use. In the wallboard plant, bags of vermiculite were carried to a hopper where an employee would slit open the bag and pour the vermiculite into a hopper. The vermiculite was gravity-fed through the hopper into the liquid wallboard mixture. For a period of time, the facility had expanded perlite ore in a furnace located on the site. At the time of EPA's visit, this practice had been discontinued and the furnace had been removed. EPA took two samples from bags of vermiculite at the site, as well as a sample from exposed wallboard debris that was on the surface of a landfill located on the property. None of these samples contained detectable levels of asbestos. The samples were analyzed using polarized light microscopy (PLM). EPA determined no further action was needed.

GAO-09-6R