ASBESTOS IN THE AIR

摘要

There's a new gold rush in California's Sierra Nevada foothills—a rush to build homes. Tens of thousands of new residences have been approved for the area recently, and every day heavy machines carve out another future front yard. But the building boom that is transforming the once rural western part of El Dorado County into a suburb of Sacramento has also unearthed a health hazard: asbestos. Although government agencies say the area is safe, citizens and environmental experts argue that the agencies may be vastly underestimating the risk.