Is dust in the wind fanning the flames of hysteria?

By Larry Weitzman, Mountain Democrat

Kansas is a great state and was one of my favorite musical groups of the '70s. I hope they understand that my title phrase is not a denigration of their wonderful music and one of their major hit records. Music aside, it is incredibly amazing how some individuals view the action of the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors.

The headlines in the Sacramento Bee on page one read "Asbestos dust law rejected, El Dorado quarry owners win." The Bee reporter's lead paragraph said, "Against the urging of state and federal environmental and education officials, El Dorado County supervisors rejected a proposed law designed to further protect foothill residents from cancer-causing asbestos dust raised by building and mining activities."

Perhaps the Bee reporter could point us less enlightened folks to the study or data that show that serpentine dust at the levels in El Dorado County pose a public health threat or point us to an individual whose mesothelioma can be attributed to environmental exposure to serpentine dust. Otherwise, the supervisors did the correct thing in not passing an ordinance that would have severely limited the freedom of individuals and cost its residents untold amounts of money for absolutely no public good.

This same reporter started an "investigative" inquiry on serpentine rock asbestos in March of 1998 based on some allegations by a Terry Trent. On April 26, 1999, the same reporter published a piece entitled "Cancer, natural asbestos linked?" There were charts and graphs pointing to the "fact" that there may be a cancer cluster in El Dorado County and it may be attributable to environmental (asbestos) exposure in this county.

This issue is simpler than all the claims that certain countries have banned asbestos, or that the World Health Organization says that there is a problem with "asbestos." It doesn't matter what other people claim or what other jurisdictions have done with respect to legislation. What matters is "What are the facts?"

If there is a problem with asbestos in El Dorado County, it should be simple enough for the state and federal experts to show the citizens the data that prove a mesothelioma was caused by the induction of fibers from serpentine in this county.

Going beyond that, these same officials should show the residents of El Dorado County a study that indicates a higher level of lung cancers and mesothelioma for individuals who have been exposed to environmental chrysotile asbestos only.

With respect to the air that the California Air Resources Board sampled, the only "structures" that were allegedly identified were that of the chrysotile variety except for one that appears to have been actinolite and not tremolite. But with respect to the structures, there was no disclosure by CARB as to how many fibers were captured, the time frame used, a statement that the samples collected where done so with standardized methodology, and the fiber size and length, which are very significant with respect to toxicity.

Even the state's sampling of one of the empty box blanks came up with a positive detection of asbestos. A box blank is where an unused cartridge is removed from the box of unused filters and sent to the lab for analysis. The blank was never exposed to the air yet it came up positive. How many of the filters that were used in the study were already contaminated? Is airborne asbestos so common that it is in the ambient air of the factory that manufactures the filters? Because the detection levels were so low, one structure could greatly affect the findings.

The facts are clear that there is not any evidence of exposure. Sir Richard Doll, who is considered the father of epidemiology, says no exposure, no disease. According to a congressionally mandated study by the Health Effects Institute, which in 1991 made studies of office buildings across America, exposure to asbestos was similar to those levels detected in El Dorado County. But the conclusion was that there was no risk, real or perceived.

What the state does under the ludicrous provisions of Proposition 65 is to estimate the risk based on many suppositions, some of which are incorrect. Two important incorrect assumptions are that chrysotile is equal in toxicity to amphibole asbestos fibers and that fiber length is inconsequential. Notwithstanding, if the arithmetical sum of their risk assessment (whatever their arbitrary criteria) exceeds 10 deaths per million, notification must be made. Proposition 65 is the problem, not serpentine rock.

But going back to the Bee and its reporting. Terry Trent made some claims about asbestos on the roads or about "his" property. The Bee evidently felt there was enough credibility in Trent to conduct an "investigation." The following are the words of Trent in a letter to the Board of Supervisors dated Sept. 28, 1999. You be the "judge":

"Thank you for informing me of Larry Weitzman's political aspiration of seeking a judge's seat in El Dorado County. It all becomes clear now as to why he has written the kinds of articles he has written in the Mountain Democrat. Why he has stopped short in his asbestos articles has always been a mystery to me and the best reason I could come up with was that the chairman of the Board of Supervisors for the county, who is also the attorney for the newspaper, somehow was applying pressure to Weitzman. It didn't dawn on me that the two of them, and the whole damn newspaper, were catering and pandering to the moneyed interests of the county at the severe disadvantage of the everyday resident.

"What a perfectly incestual, ugly little family we have in Mark Nielsen, Larry Weitzman, The Mountain Democrat, the existing judges and the various members of the Planning Commission et, al.

"When looking up from the bottom of the cesspool of the political structure of El Dorado County, I suppose even brownish white foam at the top of the pool looks good in relative comparison to the bottom."

Just to be perfectly clear, Mark Nielsen resigned as the Mountain Democrat's attorney eight years ago and absolutely no one tells me what to write, or the subject of my columns, or pressures me with respect to my writing in any way, shape or form.

The point of this exercise is that this is the person upon whose credibility the Sac Bee and its reporter relied in launching headlong into an "investigation" (if you could call it that) that has created hysteria and fear with little or no basis in fact, never mind the costs to the residents of El Dorado County.

But that doesn't stop some guy named Ray Oliva from getting into the act and he said in a letter to the Board of Supervisors, dated Sept. 29, 1999, that "I understand the he (Larry Weitzman) is running for judge." Is this how rumors get started? Soon I'll be accused of running for president. As far as running for things, I must admit that I did run for the bathroom the other day. It is extraordinary that these people know things about me that I don't even know.

The Board of Supervisors of El Dorado County has become the leader against the onslaught of the state and feds attempting to bully their unscientific ideas and rules upon them. A classic David vs. Goliath. There is little, if any, science or data that indicate there is any public health problem in El Dorado County from serpentine dust. There is a mountain of data that indicate there is no exposure risk.

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