Residents of Libby, Montana, home to the largest asbestos poisoning disasters in the U.S., received a bit of good news after the company responsible for causing thousands of asbestos-related injuries agreed to pay $250 million toward the cleanup effort.

The town’s main source of employment used to be the vermiculite mine owned by W.R. Grace and Co., the company responsible for the health disaster. The fine paid by Grace is the largest ever ordered by the U.S.’s superfund disaster program.
 
Nine years ago hundreds of Libby miners began to get sick and die from asbestos poisoning and the cancer it causes, and their plight became the one of the country’s worst asbestos disasters.
 
The $250 million will go toward cleaning up asbestos dust in the soil, water, and other areas. Grace settled with hundreds of miners because of its failure to protect employees from deadly asbestos. However, Grace is now attempting to file bankruptcy, which could invalidate other settlements and court cases that are still in the works, even though the company’s business is good and its stocks are up several hundred percent in the past several years.