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Federal environmental investigators wearing white hazmat suits and respirators have begun collecting soil samples in Spokane, Washington to retest a former vermiculite insulation manufacturing site, a Spokane newspaper reports.

For 22 years, Vermiculite Northwest produced Zonolite, an asbestos-tainted attic insulation from vermiculite ore shipped by rail from Libby, Montana, The Spokesman-Review reported.

The U.S. Environmental, which found only trace amounts of asbestos near the former factory site in 2000 and 2001, decided to conduct additional testing after the agency declared a public health emergency in Libby, where contamination from a now-shuttered vermiculite mine has been cited in the deaths of more than 200 people. Breathing asbestos fibers can cause respiratory problems and forms of cancer decades after exposure.

The EPA is testing soils at nine residences near the site of the former plant, which W.R. Grace & Co. closed in 1973.

Washington Soil Tested For Asbestos