Asbestos found on site of planned school in El Dorado County, Calif

Oak Ridge High School and the planned Promontory School are in the developing El Dorado Hills, one of several foothill communities known to have outcroppings of rock and soil with naturally occurring asbestos.

The finding of cancer-causing asbestos on the 10-acre Promontory lot this past spring will delay the school's planned opening by a year, to the fall of 2005, state environmental officials said.

Meanwhile, the announcement about Oak Ridge High being in the clear comes none too soon for the 1,800 students and staff scheduled to begin classes Monday.

Dr. Stephen Drogin, the county health officer, said he made the call after extensive testing, cleaning and re-testing in rooms throughout the school.

In addition, El Dorado Union High School District officials blacktopped the school's running track and fenced off a baseball infield after tests last month showed elevated levels of a particularly hazardous form of asbestos in dust kicked up during sampling.

"I am quite confident in stating that the classrooms, the baseball outfields, and the football field and surrounding track are safe for use by the students and staff," Drogin said.

But Drogin said ongoing home construction in the neighborhood threatens to unleash the minerals' cancer-causing fibers in the area.

With Oak Ridge High School now in the clear, asbestos investigators plan to turn their attention to housing tracts in scattered parts of the foothills known or believed likely to have exposed asbestos veins, Drogin said.

"We will explore what needs to be done outside of the school, and we are going to be looking at this in a very comprehensive fashion," Drogin said.

Several of the same asbestos consultants and state and federal environmental officials overseeing the high school cleanup are starting to plan economical ways to identify and mitigate asbestos exposures in the lower foothills of the county.

"We will start with the neighborhoods around Oak Ridge High," Drogin said.

"It's about time," said Nadine Lauren, who lives right next to the campus on Meadow Wood Drive. "Oak Ridge kind of opened the eyes of people to the potential issue of naturally occurring asbestos. I'm hoping that the mitigation efforts at Oak Ridge are the beginning of a further investigation, not the end."

Other property owners may not be so inviting of an expanded asbestos inquiry. Previous efforts by local and state officials have drawn considerable protest from residents concerned about the stigma of contamination driving down property values.

The asbestos investigation at the 22-year-old Oak Ridge High was the most sophisticated and intense yet in the county's asbestos-control program, sparked five years ago by a Bee investigation.

Concerns over a potential asbestos hazard at the school were heightened early last year after construction crews carved into a hill rich with amphibole asbestos and leveled it into two soccer fields.

School officials said air samples collected during construction picked up no asbestos. Tests commissioned by The Bee, however, found asbestos fibers in dust on the student parking lot, on fields under construction and in exposed veins of rock.

Left alone, the fibrous minerals pose no harm. Grading, trenching, drilling and other excavation work in asbestos-containing rock can release the dangerous fibers into the air. The invisible, needle-like particles can be inhaled and lodged deep in the lungs, experts say.

At Oak Ridge High, the health officials have been especially concerned because young people are more at risk than adults for asbestos-related disease.

Further, most of the asbestos found in the air and uncovered soil on campus is a rare type called amphibole, believed to be many times more toxic than the more prevalent chrysotile asbestos.

Even brief exposures to amphibole fibers can be followed decades later by mesothelioma, an inoperable cancer of the membranes lining the chest and other body cavities, scientists say.

In testing the air inside and outside Oak Ridge High, the school district's consulting firm, Mactech of Herndon, Va., simulated dust-raising activities to capture the amphibole fibers, which can settle out of the air within minutes.

Officials with the state and federal environmental protection agencies reviewed the sampling, which employed the latest methods for best capturing amphibole fibers.

"We spent well over a million dollars on this project," said Bob Ferguson, district superintendent. "This is money we certainly didn't expect to spend, but it is necessary."

Classrooms were wiped cleaned from top to bottom, including ceilings, ledges, furnishing and appliances, while carpets were steam-cleaned.

Outside, however, two of the school's three baseball diamonds remain untested. Drogin said district officials have not yet determined how they will block access to the dirt infields.

Late Tuesday, the district granted The Bee's standing request to see copies of the test results, which had been withheld pending validation by outside experts.

Air monitors placed on testing crews at various playing fields and courts collected the highest concentrations of amphibole fibers on the varsity baseball infield and the track, as workers dragged the fields to kick up dust.

One expert, however, faulted the district for not testing the air after sealing off the track to see whether the fix worked.

"This breaks the most basic rule of asbestos remediation: measure, remediate, re-measure, to make sure the area has lower levels than when they started," said Dr. Bruce Case, a McGill University expert in the health effects of mineral fibers.

Another specialist questioned how the county health officer could deem the school safe when the accuracy of testing data has not been verified.

"If it is not yet validated, how can they act on it?" asked Jerrold Abraham, an expert in asbestos-related diseases at the State University of New York's College of Medicine in Syracuse.

Drogin said he is sure blacktopping the track eliminated the asbestos exposure and said he is confident the testing data will be validated. He added that the school plans to continue intermittent asbestos monitoring.

For the planned elementary school, officials with Rescue Union School District plan to excavate the top layers of soil and import clean fill, an estimated $42,000 job.

Suzanne King, district superintendent, said the asbestos discovery occurred in March as workers were about to break ground.

"The graders were ready to go, they were on site," King said.

Sacramento Bee, The (CA), Aug 14, 2003