Kootenai Climate Group Clears the air in Lincoln County

Kootenai Climate Group board members surrounded by their fans.

Our friends at the Kootenai Climate Group scored a win for folks living with with lung disease in Lincoln County!

Libby is home to the W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine, the epicenter of the largest asbestos cleanup project in the US. While there's been good progress in the asbestos cleanup, Lincoln county still has highest asbestos-related mortality rate in the country. Asbestos-related diseases often affect the lungs, and make folks more vulnerable to air pollution like the wildfire smoke we're seeing more and more of.

Box fan filter display at the CARD clinic.

So, the Kootenai Climate Group took matters into their hands and got 120 air filter kits, which are being given out through all three senior citizen centers in Lincoln County. The kits are ingenious and low-cost, made by attaching a MERV-13 furnace filter to a box fan.

Forty more units also went to Families in Partnership, which serves low income families with young children. Finally, they gave the Center for Asbestos Related Disease (CARD) Clinic twenty more high-tech HEPA air purifiers for at-risk patients. We applaud our friends at the Kootenai Climate Group for keeping folks in Libby safe and healthy!

Interested in making your own air filter kit? All it takes is a box fan, some duct tape, and a MERV 13 furnace filter (found at any hardware store). We've got instructions on the patient tab of our Wildfire Smoke Health Toolkit.