Last week the Bureau of Land Management closed about half the Clear Creek Management Area in the Diablo Range on Friday. The reason was that the Environmental Protection Agency issued a report saying asbestos in the area posed a serious cancer risk to those who work, hike, camp, hunt, collect gems and ride dirt bikes.
“Frankly, we were surprised at how high the levels of asbestos are at Clear Creek,” said Jere Johnson, a Superfund project manager for the EPA who worked on the study. “What we found is that there is a lot of asbestos in the soil, and when you disturb the soil it poses a health risk.”
Clear Creek has the largest deposits in the United States because of the unique geological combination of volcanic rock and faults. Arnold Den, a science advisor for the EPA, said that a 2005 UC Davis study found that people living near naturally occurring asbestos had a significantly higher cancer rate than those who don’t.
Dirt bikers are not happy at all saying that the type of asbestos there is not toxic and are upset about being denied access to public land.
“The recreation community is in a state of shock,” said Don Amador, a frequent visitor to Clear Creek and Western representative for the Blue Ribbon Coalition, an off-road advocacy group.
“It’s unprecedented, as far as public land issues go. We’re going to want to fight it, either administratively or in court.”
“The bottom line is, asbestos is a very potent carcinogen,” he said. “We don’t want to wait around and count the bodies. We’d rather prevent the bodies in the first place.”
Arnold Den says that the government is taking no chances because the danger from asbestos particles can cause cancer of the lungs and throat, called mesothelioma, and scarring of the lungs that interferes with breathing.
