Comment by thrownaway2424 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thrownaway2424 | Hacker News Reader

In California there's a large asbestos deposit near the town of Coalinga. Two of the mines were cleaned up under the EPA "superfund". The surrounding area also contains a toxic mercury mine called New Idria. The whole region is remote and favored by hunters, campers, and motorcyclists.

The funny thing about this site is how polarizing it is. The EPA claims victory in cleaning up the mines, but geologists point out that tectonic activity and erosion liberate and transport millions of cubic yards of asbestos. The BLM says the area is closed, but motorcycle clubs still trespass. Some people say that the local asbestos isn't dangerous because it's fluffier/shorter/longer/curlier than others that are dangerous. Rural people say the closure is a coastal, liberal conspiracy. Complete opposite opinions are expressed in apparently respectable peer-reviewed scientific journals.

I don't know what to believe. Maybe the rednecks are right, it's a perfectly good place to tear it up on your dirt bike. Or maybe it's insanely dangerous, and the uncertainty is caused by industry disinformation campaigns. Who knows.

That's interesting. I stopped at a McDonald's very near Coalinga* and on the take out window it read verbatim:

"Chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm may be present in foods or beverages sold or served here.

Such chemicals are also present in this area and in consumer products and other items sold, provided, and used here."

And wondered why this was on window. Now I know. Still decent cheeseburger though I don't care.

*https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Coalinga,+CA/McDonald's,+275...

Pretty much every building in California has those warnings. Cars sold in California have a sticker on the driver window with that warning.

Ha, that's weird, I guess I've noticed them before.

Yeah, it's a warning that was passed by ballot initiative. If the initiative had said "Warning: this building is known to contain body thetans" then they'd have to print that on the sign. Welcome to California.

As a non-CA resident I've benefitted from these stickers. One time I was given a bar set which included a shaker which had a sticker on it that said something along the lines of "This product contains lead paint which the state of California has found to be hazardous…"

It goes farther. Every single cable (USB, HDMI, ethernet... that kind of cable) you buy will come with the same label "this product contains lead, a chemical known to the state of California to cause birth defects etc etc etc". It might have more of an effect if there were any cables that didn't come with the warning.

Presumably not ones assembled with lead-free solder? (not that the plastics are likely much safer by Californian standards, but still)

It's not usually the solder, often the rubber in the cable contains some white lead.

Unfortunately, a lot of the Prop 65 warning labels don't even say what particular substance they're warning you about. And I've even seen such stickers on pieces of solid wood, warning the consumer because wood dust is a _suspected_ carcinogen when inhaled.

To me, these labels are useless and dangerous for the same reason a lot of anti-drug education/propaganda is bad: it doesn't do anything to inform you about the relative level of danger. e.g. regardless of the affects of the drug itself, smoking a joint is _much_ less dangerous than injecting any substance with needles/syringes/etc which are not sterile.

I bought some graphite a few years ago to lubricate a sticking lock. The label on the tube told me that graphite is known to the state of California as a carcinogen. I reflected on the pencils I and everyone else had sharpened over the years, and wondered what if any abatement measures are present in California classrooms.

The graphite worked nicely on the lock.

I don't live in California, but sometimes fly in for work. I've joked that the pilot should just announce as they are crossing the border that "The State of California is known by the State of California to cause cancer." and call it a day.

Another fun thing to do is to point the signs out to a California resident, who has probably long since completely edited them out of existence. It causes a "can't unsee!" reaction for about a week for certain people.

I come from one of the towns mentioned in the article, Thetford Mines (they somehow misspelled it), which is about 45 minutes drive from Asbestos. Reading the local newspaper is always entertaining, it seems everyone in town has an opinion about the fibre, and most of the time it's a positive one too. If some MP dares speak against it, everyone gets mad.

Anyways, people live there and as a child it's normal to go play in the dump sites, which have a strange white-greenish color due to the mineral. You pick up a "bearded rock" as we call them, the beard being the asbestos fibre, and stash them in your bedroom or whatever kids do with rocks.

Needless to say, living now in the States and telling people about those stories (which I considered normal, who wouldn't play with an asbestos-laden rocks?) always brings up interesting reactions. I was told (by the local newspaper) that you can't breath the big fibres, that it's once they're processed that they're dangerous, so I do wonder if I still have some it in me...

I took a geology class at Stanford when I was an undergrad, and we went to that deposit/mine on a field trip. My professor claimed that the type of asbestos present at the mine was harmless since the mineral structure was a large fiber, and it didn't effect our lungs the way smaller fiber-ed asbestos does (different versions of serpentine, essentially). He made the argument that there was safe asbestos and unsafe asbestos. We them proceeded to walk all over it and collect some samples by hand.

But I'm not sure who to believe nowadays, especially after reading this article. Makes the whole industry sound pretty scummy and doesn't allude to there being a "safe" version of asbestos. (My professor never told us about how the asbestos industry basically funded all sorts of propaganda in favor of the stuff.)

That's interesting. I know undergrads from UCSC also use the site. I guess I trust geologists to describe the material, its fiber diameter and length and whether the fibers are straight or curved, soluble or insoluble, and so forth. I don't think I would listen to geologists on matters of disease, though :-)

I've been to this area a number of times. I'm comfortable with it because if you do the math, it's pretty darn hard to poison open air. Working with the material in confined spaces may be suicidal. Walking on it under an open sky seems harmless.

The thing about Mesothelioma is that it doesn't show up for a long time - sometimes 20 years or more. That's what makes asbestos so devious - it's easy for corporations to deny injuries they caused people 20 years and billions of dollars of profit later. If you think this isn't happening in the US anymore (a misconception a lot of people have) - I would recommend you read up on it: http://www.takejusticeback.com/Asbestos

California's state rock, Serpentine, contains asbestos.

I don't know however I suddenly have the urge to make a few asbestos grinding machines to plant them in the ventilation system of these big asbestos companies and their disinformation allies as an "experiment".

On a more serious note if I were any of the people affected by this I would actually make it as one of my goals before i die.

There's no better revenge then killing you with your own poison especially when it take years for the effects to be noticed.

Hey if they are right nothing will happen to them right?

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