Baltimore Sun News Report
Report Finds Asbestos Risks in 15 States
Naturally Occurring Mineral Is Focus of Study
324 Locations Charted in the East
22 MD Sites May Contain Well-known Carcinogen
by Andrew Schneider
Federal geologists have identified 324 sites in Maryland and 14 other Eastern states that may contain naturally occurring asbestos, a well-known carcinogen that can also cause fatal lung disease.
The report by the United States Geological Survey comes at a time of growing medical concern about quarries, mines and other places where asbestos may be present.
Asbestos has long been identified as a hazard in workplaces where there are heavy concentrations in the air. But there's evidence that former mines, inactive quarries and ground containing asbestos might be hazardous if rocks and soil are disturbed.
People living near the 22 sites in Maryland are not in danger, says Richard McIntire, a spokesman for the state Department of the Environment. But McIntire acknowledged that the agency doesn't examine the sites, which include former mines, quarries and places where prospecting has occurred.
"Maryland does know where the naturally occurring sites are, but they are not monitored, as the material poses no health or safety threat as it is trapped in the rock formation," McIntire said. "As long as the rock is not hammered, crushed, mined, broken down, etc., it poses no threat."
But federal geologists and physicians specializing in asbestos diseases said state and local agencies should inspect the sites for risk of exposure.
Though naturally occurring asbestos is not a health risk if it is not disturbed, says the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry, potentially dangerous fibers can be released into the air by "weather processes" and "routine human activities." Activities include working in the yard or running, hiking or bicycling on unpaved surfaces where asbestos is present.
Asbestos is a natural mineral, sometimes found in pure form, but its fibers are most often found in rocks and other minerals. For decades, people have been sickened and killed by exposure in the workplace, mostly to chrysotile, the type of asbestos most often used for commercial purposes.
The risk from naturally occurring asbestos is mostly unknown. There are no federal regulations dealing with it, and little research has been done on the risk until recently.
California study
Dr. Marc Schenker and colleagues at the University of California, Davis just completed a study that examined 3,000 California cases of mesothelioma — a fast-killing cancer caused only by exposure to asbestos — diagnosed between 1988 and 1997. It is the most extensive study of its type in this country.
Schenker, a lung specialist and epidemiologist, and his team documented that the closer people lived to sites with asbestos, the more likely they were to get the disease. The incidence dropped 6.3 percent for every 10 kilometers from a site.
The Maryland sites are spread from Harford County in the north to Montgomery County in the south, with the largest number in and around Baltimore County.
Some old mines and quarries have been given new uses, McIntire said, including Soldiers Delight park near Owings Mills, which is famous for its serpentine rock. Asbestos is found in serpentine rock.
There is only one actively worked quarry in the state, McIntire said. The Rockville Crushed Stone Co. quarry in Montgomery County is regulated by the state, McIntire said, and watched by the county.
Self-report at quarry
However, McIntire said, the state does not monitor the site for release of asbestos, relying on the company to provide air monitoring data four times a year "and let us know immediately if there's a serious release of asbestos."
"Government should never agree to trust any mine or quarry operator to monitor their asbestos emissions and report itself for excessive release," said Barry Castleman, a former Baltimore County air pollution control officer and an international authority on issues of asbestos and the law. "This is ridiculous for any agency charged with protecting public health."
"This is not a problem" to have the company do its own monitoring, McIntire said. "If we get a bunch of people calling and saying asbestos is being released, we'll send inspectors out immediately."
Asbestos fibers are invisible to the naked eye and can be seen only with powerful microscopes.
Castleman said Schenker's study "emphasizes the need for health officials to search local medical records to see if there are deaths from mesothelioma among long-term residents in areas where quarrying activity has been going on for 30 years or more."
The Rockville and Soldiers Delight quarries, a quarry in White Hall and another in Elk Mills in Cecil County — all on the USGS list — were the focus of state and county investigations in the late 1970s. Asbestos was found in the rock they were selling for road construction.
The USGS report identifying the asbestos sites was compiled by research geologist Brad Van Gosen. It contains a map of the Eastern states, a few paragraphs explaining how it was done and a database with information on the 324 sites. It was released July 1, the beginning of a holiday weekend, and did not attract the news media's attention.
Patrick Leahy, the acting director of the USGS, said in a statement released with the report that his agency is updating its information on asbestos localities "because of strong interest expressed by the public health, geologic and environmental communities."
"This update is the first step towards better understanding the geologic factors that contribute to the presence of asbestos across the nation," he said.
USGS geologists Greg Meeker and Geoff Plumlee say the agency will next compile lists of sites in the Midwest and West, probably over about two years.
Historical research
Van Gosen's work on Eastern states was based on historical documents, mining reports and records listing mines and quarries, asbestos sites identified by prospectors but not rich enough to mine and other occurrences of asbestos sightings going back to the 1800s.
"Many of the existing maps and compilations used today may not make note of these historic mentions, and those sites are still there, and could, if disturbed, be a source of asbestos exposure today," said Meeker.
Once these sites are identified, the agency says, the area should be examined to determine the type and concentration of asbestos and whether or not the area has been built on or is well-covered with grass, trees or non-asbestos-containing rocks. The agency expects the number of asbestos-containing locations in its database to increase as local officials report additional sites.
Tom Sinks, acting director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said the USGS report "tells us where asbestos has been found in the past. It does not tell us if asbestos is still present in these locations or if people are being exposed to asbestos fibers at these sites.
"This information is helpful by alerting communities that asbestos may be present and, where it is found, to take steps to reduce asbestos exposure," Sinks said.
Sinks said individuals and communities can take protective action when they know the locations of naturally occurring asbestos deposits. He cites Fairfax County, Va., and El Dorado Hills, Calif., as communities that have developed or are developing guidance for developers, construction companies and others whose business or other activities may expose them to the hazard.
The number of potentially hazardous sites in the 15 states surveyed range from a low of one in Connecticut to 28 in Virginia, 37 in New Jersey, 41 in Pennsylvania and 52 in Georgia.
Related diseases
Twenty-one of Maryland's sites were reported by the USGS to have types of asbestos that can cause asbestos disease: asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. (The USGS says the Mineral Hill mine on Miner's Ridge in Carroll County, five miles outside Reisterstown, has hornblende, which is not considered a disease-causing asbestos.)
Asbestosis is the slow spread of scar tissues within the lung which can, over years, cause it to become as hard as a football, unable to expand and contract.
Inhalation of fibers can also cause lung cancer, which can, in many cases, be treated. But the five-year survival rate is low. What is virtually untreatable and almost always fatal is mesothelioma, a cancerous tumor of the lining of the lung, chest cavity or abdomen. Death usually occurs within months of diagnosis.
Schenker said that with the information available he could not quantify the risk to people living near one of the sites. The number of mesotheliomas in the United States from all sources of asbestos, he said, is about the same as the estimated lung cancers from secondhand smoke. The American Cancer Society puts that number at more than 3,000.
Results of the California study are to be published in September in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The journal posted it on its Web site this month.
Schenker said he began the study because of continuing stories in The Sacramento Bee. Since 1999, the newspaper had been reporting that high levels of highly toxic tremolite asbestos fibers were being sent airborne as builders constructed roads and sidewalks to connect the million-dollar homes that are being built on hillsides contaminated with naturally occurring asbestos.
Last year, the regional EPA office had workers wear air monitors and ride bikes and play in the school yards in the area. High levels of asbestos fibers were detected, and many of the play areas were paved over to encapsulate the asbestos.
Despite the EPA's findings, some local officials and developers expressed skepticism, saying there was no evidence of death and illness.
Asbestos diseases can take from 20 to 40 years to show symptoms.
"This study could be an important clue to why the disease seems to occur in people not exposed to asbestos in the occupational setting," said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association and dean of the School of Medicine at New York's Stony Brook University.
He adds that the risks from these sites of naturally occurring asbestos must be made known.
Education, protection
"The public has an absolute right to know what they're building on and playing in, and that's the first responsibility of government," Edelman said. "The second responsibility is to set regulation if they think the risk from asbestos fibers is high enough."
Dr. Michael Harbut, one of the nation's leading authorities on asbestos disease, calls the study "important work."
"Families will want to know what level of risk this asbestos exposure poses when compared to death by swimming pool drowning or auto accident," said Harbut, co-director of the National Center for Vermiculite and Asbestos-Related Cancers. "These are gruesome but necessary questions because the potential impact of this study could be quite socially and economically disruptive."
Schenker said he hopes "everyone realizes that this is a real issue that should be looked at."
"Let's move on from posturing — 'There's nothing there — where are the bodies?' — to say, OK, we have the scientific data that has been increased by this study," he said. "Let's look at what approaches are appropriate and how to deal with them."
Schenker said he's concerned about other locations across the nation.
"If enough people across the country try to examine mesothelioma and its relationship to known asbestos sites, it can be explained without creating a panic, and we can come up with appropriate public health approaches to deal with this," he said.
Sun staff cartographer Christine Fellenz and researcher Sandy Levy contributed to this article.
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More information
The USGS report: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1189/
Information about naturally occurring asbestos in a fact sheet prepared by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/factsheets.html
The state Department of the Environment: 410-537-3000; 1-800-633-6101. http://www.mde.state.md.us/
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The Committee to Protect Mesothelioma Victims (CPMV) is an organization founded by asbestos victims and their families and friends. CPMV works to raise awareness on national asbestos issues and ensure that victims' rights are properly represented and protected on both a local and national level. For more information, www.asbestostruth.org.
