El Dorado residents oppose housing in asbestos area

Published: Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009 - 5:15 pm

Dozens of residents in the landmark Serrano development of El Dorado Hills are lining up against a proposal to build 135 homes on a ridge that bears a particularly toxic form of asbestos.

The united front represents the first organized opposition to construction in Sierra foothills asbestos deposits, after 10 years of public health warnings.

Carving roads, utility trenches and building pads into Oak Ridge is bound to release breathable asbestos fibers into the air, potentially contaminating neighborhoods and schools downwind, according to geologists and environmental health experts who have studied the area.

Some of the digging would take place just over residents' back fences and near sports fields at Oak Ridge High School, which takes its name from the proposed housing site.

The main public health concern is mesothelioma, an inoperable and almost always fatal cancer of the membranes lining the chest and other body cavities. Breathing the type of asbestos commonly found around Oak Ridge for just brief periods -- months, not years -- can be enough to trigger the disease, though it typically takes 20 to 30 years for the cancer to take hold, according to several health studies.

Children are especially at risk because of their long life expectancy.

Nadine Lauren, a leader of the opposition group, counts 23 children among her dozen closest neighbors on Meadow Wood Drive.

"My concern is 100 percent about health risk, most importantly to my kids," said Lauren, who helped enlist many of the 70-plus Serrano residents in the group, Block Asbestos Ridge Development.