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Many people have heard of the small town of Libby, Montana, but their rise from obscurity has been anything but enjoyable. Within the valley of 10,000 at least 200 people have died breathing asbestos and federal health authorities say another 2,000 or more face shorter lives because of cancer and gradual hardening of their lungs as a result of asbestos exposure.
According to federal environmental and health officials, the Sacramento suburb of El Dorado Hills may have the same ill-fated destiny. Tests are showing elevated concentrations of cancer causing amphibole asbestos in soil and air in parks, a playground, athletic fields, roads, back yards of homes and other places.
Unlike commercial asbestos, called crysotile asbestos, the asbestos in Libby and most of El Dorado is part of a more durable mineral class called amphiboles. While crysotile fibers slowly break down in lung fluid, amphiboles last forever in terms of a human lifetime. The EPA, in response to urges of two independent risk assessors, is recalculating asbestos cancer risk to reflect the higher carcinogenicity of amphiboles and longer fibers.
According to a risk assessor from Aeolus Inc, Wayne Berman, the company’s research suggests amphiboles are substantially more hazardous toward the induction of mesothelioma and lung cancer compared to crysotile. Berman said that given crysotile and amphibole asbestos with an identical mix of fiber lengths and shapes, it appears amphiboles are 700 to 800 times more hazardous for mesothelioma and lung cancer combined than crysotile asbestos.
Asbestos deposits in the Earth pose no risk when undisturbed, but the quickly developing El Dorado area has resulted in more homes, schools, and buildings, which could have allowed developers to spread the asbestos fibers into the air. Wearing protective suits and air monitors, the EPA played baseball, gardened, hiked and performed other daily activities that residents would normally go through in order to determine the extent of asbestos in the area.
After 22,000 measurements of air and soil, the results were so troubling that a top El Dorado County environmental official put out a press release warning the agency was about to “scare the living daylights out of every man, woman and child” in the county. While it is still unknown what kind of affect the asbestos will have on the health of residents, Western El Dorado County’s population doubled in the 1970s, again in the 1980s and hit 18,000 by 2000. Since 2000, El Dorado Hills has grown by about 3,000 every year since.
The latency period for asbestos diseases and cancers can take 15 to 20 years to show up, so the study results might indicate grave predictions. El Dorado may not be the only California county heavily affected by asbestos exposure. Asbestos is so common in California that it is found in 44 of the state’s 58 counties, including all of the Bay Area. Considering five of the top 10 fastest growing counties are in Northern California and by percentage have sizeable deposits of rock likely containing asbestos, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the asbestos impact may be far from over.
Despite the indications the El Dorado asbestos findings have, the Bush administration is proposing to eliminate the only nationwide search for likely deposits of asbestos, claiming private industry, academia or states could fill the void. Congress is also debating the creation of a $140 billion asbestos trust fund for exposed workers nationwide, including non-mining residents of Libby, but people like El Dorado residents would be excluded.
Since federal and state standards for asbestos in air, soil and water date to 1986 and treat crysotile and amphiboles asbestos the same in assessing risk, the reports could be drastically underestimating the actual dangers.
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