Asbestos, a Canadian Mining Town, Votes to Detoxify Its Name

 

Asbestos, a Canadian Mining Town, Votes to Detoxify Its Name

The Quebec town is home to one of the world’s largest former asbestos mines. Residents voted to rename the town Val-des-Sources, or Valley of the Springs.

What's left of the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, soon to be called Val-des-Sources.Credit...Eric Thomas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
What's left of the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, soon to be called Val-des-Sources.

By Marie Fazio
Oct. 21, 2020

Asbestos, a Quebec town that is home to what was once the largest asbestos mine in the world, no longer wants to be named after the carcinogen.

For two centuries, the town’s economic and cultural identity had been tied to the mineral. Blue water now fills the Jeffrey Mine, where workers mined tons of chrysotile asbestos, providing crucial material for fire insulation, including equipment for soldiers of two world wars.

But the association with the mine slowly turned into a burden for the town, as the mineral’s links to cancer became widely known. On Monday, the mayor of Asbestos announced that residents had voted to call the town Val-des-Sources, which translates as “Valley of the Springs.”

The town, about 100 miles east of Montreal, is home to 7,000 residents, some of whom have sought to distance themselves from the cancer-causing material that formed the backbone of the local economy and identity.

On Monday evening, after lengthy debates, committee meetings, discussions and days of residents’ voting from their cars because of the coronavirus pandemic, the mayor unveiled the people’s choice.

If all goes as expected, the town will be rid of the carcinogenic reference by December, the mayor said. The new name still needs the approval of the provincial government and the minister of municipal affairs and housing.

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