Clear Creek Closed For Summer
EPA says asbestos danger too high for the public, dirt bikers say it’s none of their business
By KATE WOODS
Pinnacle Staff Writer
Avid dirt biker Dave Griffith says he’s considering moving from Gilroy to the Sierra Foothills – where the off-road riding is not restricted. Griffith, a winemaker at Leal Vineyards in Hollister, says his favorite dirt-biking area is the rugged outback of 75,000 acres in the serpentine mountains of south San Benito County, called Clear Creek, which is under the domain of the Bureau of Land Management. But several weeks ago, the agency announced the area is closed to the public for the summer because of a high asbestos risk. It is the first time BLM has closed the area – called “dirt biker heaven” by its many visitors -- because of the asbestos dust so readily kicked up by speeding off-road vehicles. BLM officials say the drastic move is to protect the public from asbestos-caused lung diseases.
“If they close Clear Creek I’ll move,” said Griffith, 33. “I’m frustrated! If I were to get sick because of Clear Creek, I wouldn’t regret it for all the good it’s done me.”
The closure will last from June 4 through October 15 – the dry season -- and affects a 48-square-mile area that BLM officials call the Red Zone, where huge amounts of natural chrysotile asbestos occur. BLM Hollister director George Hill made the decision based on test samples and a field study conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Hill said it is the first time he knows of that BLM has made such a season-long closure in the remote wilderness so popular with off-road vehicle enthusiasts, hunters, rock hounds and campers, which includes 440 miles of roads and trails normally open to the public.
“It warranted concern,” Hill said. “We have to err on the side of safety.”
In the dry summer season, up to 1,200 people visit Clear Creek every month, according to BLM statistics. Now only property owners, mining claim holders and government officials will be allowed through the area. Because of the asbestos dust that sheds off the serpentine masses, made worse by the speeding tires of dirt bikes, Hill said it is being closed for the public’s own good. Griffith and his fellow dirt bikers say they don’t appreciate the government being a nanny to their health. “People can smoke cigarettes, but yet we can’t ride because someone thinks it’s bad for us?” said Griffith, who says that riding in Clear Creek has kept him drug-free and gives him peace of mind. “I guarantee, I’m not the only one. Clear Creek is an alternative natural high.”
Hill said three EPA technicians took 120 air samples in the months of September, November and March in a “rider” scenario. Using a calibrated air pump attached to an asbestos fiber-sampling filter in backpacks, they rode dirt bikes one behind the other through a 25-mile route on the rugged trails of the Clear Creek Management Area. They also did a similar run in an SUV with the windows down. What they found, said Hill, was that the asbestos fibers potentially inhaled far exceeded the EPA standard of one in a million parts. The asbestos in the Clear Creek test runs came to one in a thousand, making it what the EPA calls an “elevated lifetime cancer risk.” “The EPA says one in 10,000 is bad enough to close an area,” Hill said. “When you get one in a thousand, well, we had to make a decision.”
The EPA did not return calls. But according to their preliminary reports, the exposure was even worse for the two riders trailing the lead rider. The third rider received nine times the asbestos exposure allowable by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “The asbestos exposure has been talked about as far back as 1986,” Hill said. “We thought it (the closure) would be the best thing to do.”
But longtime dirt biker Ed Tobin, spokesman for the dirt biker group called the Salinas Ramblers, said he believes the EPA test runs were flawed. He monitored the EPA test runs taken on the Clear Creek riding trails in September, when BLM Ranger William Swartz was the lead rider followed by two EPA technicians, also on dirt bikes. “The third rider fell seriously behind,” Tobin said. “He was riding painfully slow. I could have walked faster.” Tobin said the third rider crashed on trail T114, not far from the Old Jade Mill. The rider broke his clutch lever along with the backpack he was carrying with the test equipment. The riders were to take six air samples throughout the run. “We had done three, then this guy goes and burrows in and clogs the machines,” Tobin added. “Dirt was stuffed in all the test equipment. The third rider didn’t complete the course. I had to take him back to Oak Flat where the others were waiting for us.”
Tobin believes the EPA had predetermined answers to their questions before the tests were conducted. “I don’t trust the EPA as far as I can throw them,” he said. “They’re a bunch of liars and I will always hold their results suspect. For BLM to base this closure on those flimsy EPA results is ridiculous.” Tobin and others decrying the closure argue that the asbestos in Clear Creek is the kind that is safer to humans and animals since it is more easily expunged from the body. It’s a long-argued battle that’s never been completely settled between scientists, environmentalists, corporate frontmen and policy makers. “We’re dealing with people who believe one fiber can kill you,” Tobin said. “We need an independent study of the area, done by a third party not associated with the government.
BLM officials met with off-road riders in May to tell them about the upcoming closure. At the meeting BLM geologist Tim Moore handed out information about asbestos-related cancer deaths and tried to explain the hazards of asbestos inhalation – a presentation not well received. Tobin said he argued with Moore about it. “I said, ‘Tim, tell the people the truth,’” Tobin recalled. “He handed out this thing that said there was an asbestos epidemic. It was meant to scare people.”
The Clear Creek area has been mined extensively throughout the past century for its cornucopia of minerals, the most abundant being mercury and asbestos. Today, there are nearly 90 abandoned mines in the entire area. Most of the mercury mines, including the largest in New Idria, closed by the 1970s. In the past decade, the massive asbestos mines also have closed one after another as the effects of asbestos, a powdery substance, on humans and the environment are becoming better known. One of the largest mines, the Atlas Asbestos Mine, is a Superfund cleanup site. Another, the KCAC, closed in 2001.
Tobin says that according to the nonprofit green organization called the Environmental Working Group, only three asbestos-related deaths have been recorded in San Benito in the past 25 years. “Not exactly an epidemic by any means and it does not appear that Clear Creek is a ‘hot spot’ either,” he added. Moore said most of the miners who worked in the Atlas Mine and the KCAC lived in Fresno, and it is not yet known how their former jobs might affect their health. In many cases in takes years for asbestos-related cancer to show up in a victim. “A lot of folks (at that meeting) didn’t believe it’s a danger,” Moore said. “They want to see where the bodies are.”
For more information on the Clear Creek closure, call the Hollister BLM at 831-630-5000.