A federal debate over human health and public access in the Clear Creek Management Area may soon unfold in the United States Capitol.
Restriction of access to the 63,000 acres of public land in southern San Benito and western Fresno counties — where sporadically and naturally-occurring asbestos, according to findings since 2008 by both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management, elevates health-related risk — have triggered congressional action by Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), who seeks more legislation and potentially broader support for greater access to the once-popular off-highway playground, among other public property.
In an interview Feb. 5 with BenitoLink, the congressman shed light on Clear Creek, along with plans for future efforts in Washington.
“I’m not surprised that the BLM has followed the path laid out by the EPA,” said Farr. “What our legislation aims to do is have them revisit the whole thing and, essentially, figure out a new way to assume risk.”
“I use an analogy,” he added. “People have climbed El Capitan in Yosemite; and that has had high risk, but the park service has allowed them to do it.”
In response to Farr’s comments, a spokesperson with the BLM stood by the federal policy on the Clear Creek use restrictions, including the Serpentine Area of Critical Environmental Concern.
“The EPA is one of the federal government’s science authorities in relation to environmental and human health,” said the BLM’s spokesperson in a statement Feb. 6 to BenitoLink. “The California Department of Toxic Substance Control and other health organizations concurred with 2008 EPA Risk Assessment findings and conclusions.”
The EPA, according to a previous report by BenitoLink, said in 2008 that “visiting Clear Creek more than one day per year can put adults and children above the EPA’s acceptable risk range for exposure to carcinogens and increased excess lifetime cancer risk from many typical CCMA recreational activities.”
Last May, according to a previous report by BenitoLink, Farr submitted testimony to the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulations for a hearing on his bill, H.R. 1776: The Clear Creek National Recreation Area and Conservation Act supports what Rep. Farr has called “the simple idea that Americans should have the freedom to decide what risk they are willing to accept when using our public lands.”
Farr told BenitoLink last week that the bill could help bring the Clear Creek situation “out of a logjam.”
“We will be reintroducing the bill, probably seeking a broader range of support from subcommittee members,” said Farr. “I don’t think that it should be too controversial in Congress. It seems more controversial in the area of scientific argument. We don’t make decisions on science here. We make decisions on investing in science.”
Last year, both Hollister’s City Council and San Benito County’s Board of Supervisors wrote to the Department of Interior, and questioned a record of decision the BLM made about Clear Creek in 2014.
In their no-confidence letters, which received nods last week by Congressman Farr, the local governments alleged that the BLM had demonstrated a lack of desire to consider current scientific data that potentially could warrant further review of risk associated with off-highway vehicle use in the Clear Creek area.
The BLM said in statements to BenitoLink both last year and on Feb. 6 that the federal agency will reevaluate management decisions in the event new information or conditional changes regarding asbestos would warrant such reconsideration. Though new information and conditional changes, such as the reportedly under-explored effects of rainfall on the delicate and risky nature of asbestos in the Clear Creek area, remain inevitable, federal regulators apparently remain satisfied by dated findings.
“The CCMA Resource Management Plan (RMP) will consider new information with respect to decisions at a minimum of every three years,” said the BLM’s spokesperson in a statement last week to BenitoLink. “We are just approaching the one year anniversary of the Record of Decision for this RMP.”
Federal management of the Clear Creek’s “area of concern,” which spans roughly 31,000 acres of public land, annually allows five days of access by permit for any street-legal vehicle. An individual on foot can access the area for 12 days per year.
The restrictions on accessing Clear Creek have reportedly had adverse effects on businesses in San Benito and neighboring counties, according to several locals. Dan Dunning, the owner of Zoom Cycle Accessories in Santa Clara, said that since 2008, when federal regulators significantly limited public access to Clear Creak roughly six months into the Great Recession, Dunning’s business decreased by about 40 percent.
“When Clear Creek closed, I had eight employees,” said Dunning in a Feb. 8 statement to BenitoLink. “Today, I have two employees. I consider May 2, 2008, a motorcycle business owner’s 9/11.”