When Money trumps Responsibility-Bad things Happen (Lesson for Marin)

Lisa Grady of Bridge Housing to RWQCB: "We want protection from liability after we buy Marinwood Plaza"

History of Marinwood Plaza in 2014

Renee Silveira was shocked to learn that Bridge Housing wants a guarantee after purchasing Marinwood Plaza that they will not be liable for the toxic waste.* It seems no one wants to be the responsible party to clean up all of the residual toxins that could find its way to the Silveira Ranch water source, poisoning the dairy herd, the residents and potentially thousands of people that drink milk.  

Supervisor Susan Adams called multiple times and Assemblymen Mark Levine called on behalf of the developers and landowners to vacate the toxic waste clean up order and extend the final clean up date  so they may have additional time to get financing and permits.  

Why didn't they consider the risks to PUBLIC HEALTH first?  

Lisa Grady, Marinwood Village, Former Senior Project Manager

See full Board Packet with the Geologica Report responses from Marinwood Plaza, LLC, Bridge Housing and Silveira Ranches HERE

Email sent to the RWQCB on January 8, 2014.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Lisa Grady
To: Aue, Kent@Waterboards
Cc: Tom Graf (tom@grafcon.us)
Subject: Water Board Order Regarding the Marinwood Plaza site
Date: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:47:12 PM

Kent:

As you know, BRIDGE intends to develop the site post-remediation and we have assumed
that vapor mitigation in the form of sub-slab ventilation or ventilated flooring will be
necessary for some period of time in the areas currently showing vapors exceeding
allowable concentrations. We want to make sure this is taken into account with regard to
the order.

Additionally, without understanding the constraints and regulations governing the
Waterboard, it would be ideal if staff were able to modify the order with regard to timing.
While we hope this won’t be the case, the entitlements and environmental approvals may be litigated. We were anticipating that the completion of the soil removal would occur once BRIDGE has secured the necessary financing to begin construction. We anticipate that the entitlement and environmental approvals will be secured in 12 to 18 months from today. Once that occurs, and assuming there is no litigation, we would proceed with the completion of the construction documents, financing and building permitting. Typically, that takes about a year’s time. So, the earliest construction start date isn’t likely to be until June of 2016.

The other item I would like to discuss at some point is the Prospective Purchaser document
we need to protect us from liability once we take title. You indicated that the Water Board
no longer issues these but I’d like to understand how we get to an equivalent level of
protection absent that document.

Please give me a call if you have questions. Thanks and Happy New Year.

Lisa

Lisa Grady | Senior Project Manager
BRIDGE Housing Corporation | 345 Spear Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, Ca., 94105
Direct: 415.321.3534
p. 415.989.1111 ext 7514
f. 415.495.4898

lgrady@bridgehousing.com

Pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable to toxins in the environment.

*Of course, if anyone were to receive such a guarantee, then the public will never be certain that a full cleanup has taken place.  It simply gives the buyer a permanent "get out of jail card" free.

Postscript:  Lisa Grady left employment with Bridge Housing shortly after this letter was discovered and made public.

Residents’ vigilance on Marinwood toxic cleanup pays off

Editorial: Residents’ vigilance on Marinwood toxic cleanup pays off

Marinwood Cleaners dry cleaners stands vacant at Marinwood Plaza in San Rafael, Calif. on Wednesday, July 11, 2018. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal) 

POSTED: 07/30/18, 10:21 AM PDT | UPDATED: 15 HRS AGO

6 COMMENTS

Marinwood residents sent a message, loud and clear, to the state board responsible for the cleanup of a toxic spill at a neighborhood shopping center.

The spill is from dry-cleaning solvents used at one of the center’s shops. Today, that shop is one of the many closed stores in the center, as the focus has been on cleaning up the tainted soil and redeveloping the property.

Until recently, the site was seen as a potential location for building affordable housing; but the spill, local opposition and the economy stood in the way of plans. County supervisors, at one time, had agreed to reduce potential housing development on the St. Vincent’s School for Boys and Silveira ranches because of local support for building it on part of the mostly vacant Marinwood Shopping Center property.

Backers of the plan saw the redevelopment as a way to support their local grocery store, and some had visions of expanding some of the community services district’s recreation programs to the site.

But in recent years, after finding the spread of an underground plume of tetrachoroethylene, a compound that had been commonplace in dry cleaning stores, the focus has been on cleaning up the property.

Neighbors focused on the clean-up have found that their definition of clean is different than that of the state Regional Water Quality Control Board, whose staff had recently been prepared to declare the site ready for development.

Some 450 Marinwood residents signed a petition and dozens of emails were sent to the water board urging it not to sign off on the cleanup.

“I asked the board, ‘would you like this your neighborhood?’” said resident Bill Nicholas, who requested that the board do more to address soil vapor found onsite and require additional testing of neighboring Caltrans land.  READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Editor's Note: Many thanks to Supervisor Damon Connolly for providing important leadership as well as Bill McNicholas of the Clean up Marinwood Plaza Now! citizen committee.

New Hunters Point Shipyard Testing Scam Cover-up Protested "Prosecute The Crooks!

How toxic soil vapor will be removed if Casa Marinwood residents speak up.

Toxic soil gas needs ACTIVE clean upat Marinwood Plaza to protect neighboring Casa Marinwood from the toxic soil vapor that the owners want to leave in the ground to dissipate gradually.

Active soil vapor extraction should commence immediately.



Sign the Petition HERE

Photographs of the Toxic waste site known as the Eastern Hot Spot behind Prosperity Cleaners in Marinwood Plaza

A series of groundwater testing sites first established in 2007 revealed high level of contamination.

The wells are located a few feet from the chainlink fence. On the other side is Caltrans Right of Way (Miller Creek Ave. Southbound on ramp.)

The door on the right is the back door to the room where the dry cleaning machinery was kept.  A toxic hot spot was found underneath the machinery and excavated to 15 feet in 2017.  Toxic waste was discovered at a depth greater than 35' ( below the water table).  Treatment was administered in 2017 which dropped toxic levels but still it is above residential standards. The toxic soil vapor remains a threat to Casa Marinwood and workers inside Marinwood Plaza.

The second door to Prosperity Cleaners has been boarded up  and debris remains after work in 2017.

A view from Caltrans property to that shows the toxic hotspot in the foreground and you can make out the back door to Prosperity Cleaners in the background. 

When the workers in the Prosperity Cleaners plant cleaned machinery, they would dump the buckets of liquid containing toxic PCE into the grassy area next to the chain link fence.  Although the toxic soil has been treated on the Marinwood Plaza side of the fence, there have been NO soil testing and treatment on the Caltrans property.  The discharger claims that the toxic soil has been fully treated but this is preposterous as the toxic waste would tend to run downslope through the chainlink fence and into the ground on both sides.  Unless both sides of the fence are tested and treated  there is NO ASSURANCE that the toxic waste has been fully treated. It may continue to generate toxic soil vapor and pollute the groundwater for DECADES.

Toxic waste is very harmful to pregnant women, children and the immune compromised.  It is vital that ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE is served to protect the health of the most vulnerable.  Marinwood Plaza has been the site of two affordable housing proposals.  It almost got built last time when there was an attempt to cover up the toxic waste issue.  Fortunately, citizens uncovered the data and are now advocating on the behalf of the community, Casa Marinwood, St Vincents and Silviera Ranch.

Five Minutes to understand the Basics of the Marinwood Plaza Toxic Waste Problem

Only a few drops of PCE can poison an entire pool.

The original "spill" reported in July 2013 was reported as "only a few pounds" by Geologica and the spill less than a few hundred square feet.  It is now estimated to be 1/2 mile to the East and we still not have full defined the plume. We estimate hundreds of pounds may have spilled since the business began in 1965.
Geologica is recommending only to remove a 10' x 10 x 15' deep section of toxic soil. The known plume is well over 500,000 square feet and they will only remove 100 square feet?  RIDICULOUS!

This is the size of "a few pounds" of PCE. It is about 1 pint or .47 liters.

The Geologica Remedial Action Plan is incomplete and relies on inaccurate and incomplete data for its recommendations.  Worse still, it does not have a start date which means that they are asking the board to permanently delay remediation until after a buyer is found. Meanwhile NO ACTIVE REMEDIATION has occurred since 2011 while TOXIC WASTE has spread.  This is not acceptable.

Tetrachloroethylene (Perchloroethylene)

127-18-4

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Hazard Summary-Created in April 1992; Revised in December 2012

Tetrachloroethylene is widely used for dry-cleaning fabrics and metal degreasing operations. Effects resulting from acute (short term) high-level inhalation exposure of humans to tetrachloroethylene include irritation of the upper respiratory tract and eyes, kidney dysfunction, and neurological effects such as reversible mood and behavioral changes, impairment of coordination, dizziness, headache, sleepiness, and unconsciousness.  The primary effects from chronic (long term) inhalation exposure are neurological, including impaired cognitive and motor neurobehavioral performance.  Tetrachloroethylene exposure may also cause adverse effects in the kidney, liver, immune system and hematologic system, and on development and reproduction. Studies of people exposed in the workplace have found associations with several types of cancer including bladder cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma.  EPA has classified tetrachloroethylene as likely to be carcinogenic to humans.

For a complete report see the EPA Website HERE

And of course there is the politics of Toxic Waste........

Marinwood Plaza must remove toxic gas ASAP. RWQCB meeting 3/14/2018

SF shipyard soil samples manipulated or falsified, report says

SF shipyard soil samples manipulated or falsified, report says

By J.K. Dineen

January 26, 2018 Updated: January 26, 2018 8:04pm



Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

The site of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is eventually slated to have more than 12,000 housing units and millions of square feet of retail and office space.

A preliminary inquiry into fraud in the cleanup of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard found that nearly half of soil samples in two swaths of the 491-acre property had been fraudulently manipulated or falsified, according to a draft of the report.

The draft “radiological data evaluation findings report,” completed in September but not released publicly because it isn’t finished, found that out of 853 “units” tested at the shipyard, 414 were either “suspect” or showed “potential data manipulation or falsification.”

The evaluation, first reported by the real estate blog Curbed, recommends several areas for retesting, which will likely delay for at least a year the transfer of a portion of the property from the Navy to Five Point Holdings, the development group picked more than a dozen years ago to redevelop the former naval shipyard, which is slated to eventually have more than 12,000 housing units and millions of square feet of retail and office space.

In a recent public filing, Five Point said that 90 acres the developer had expected to have transferred by the Navy this year would instead be transferred in 2019 at the earliest.

“Allegations that a contractor hired by the U.S. Navy misrepresented its sampling results at The San Francisco Shipyard have resulted in data reevaluation and governmental investigations and are likely to delay the transfer of the 90 acres that we had expected to receive in 2018,” stated Five Point, adding: “It is possible that delays relating to environmental investigation and remediation could slow the remaining transfers from the U.S. Navy, which could in turn delay or impede our future development of such parcels.”

The delays will force Five Point to reprioritize “our development staging,” said Kofi Bonner, regional president for Five Point.

“We are focusing on designing the first commercial properties within the 28 acres of phase 2 shipyard property that are controlled by the city of San Francisco and Five Point,” said Bonner. “Our goal is to create a continuity that connects the completed homes on the hilltop and the first commercial buildings that we are planning.”

The preliminary report raises new questions about the environmental cleanup group Tetra Tech, which won a $300 million contract to oversee much of the $1 billion cleanup job at the former naval facility.

In June, a coalition of environmental groups filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asking the agency to strip Tetra Tech of its license. On Jan. 18, the groups, led by Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, made a supplemental filing that argues that the preliminary evaluation on soil samples adds even more urgency to the need to hire independent investigators to look into Tetra Tech’s role.

Based on interviews with more than a dozen former Tetra Tech employees, “it is likely the Navy will find additional evidence of fraud.”

“The only way to catalog all the improper sampling and remediation is to locate and interview as many former Tetra Tech employees who worked at the (shipyard) as possible to ascertain their knowledge of Tetra Tech’s fraudulent practices,” states the petition.

Tetra Tech could not be reached for a comment. In a statement on the issue in June, Tetra Tech spokesman Charlie MacPherson said the company “emphatically denies the allegations made by individuals at today’s news conference that Tetra Tech engaged in a cover-up of fraud on the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.”

So far, 300 housing units have been completed at the shipyard, although those buildings are in a portion of the property that was not used for industrial purposes and has been deemed clean by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Navy.

Though the Navy did not return an email seeking comment, it is expected to hold a news conference and community meeting on the information next week.

Almost half of toxic cleanup at Hunters Point Shipyard is questionable or faked

Toxic waste is a HUGE problem for infill housing. Many of the sites were deemed unbuildable before the Housing Developers pushed. Hunters point is an environmental scandal in the making . https://sf.curbed.com/2018/1/26/16916742/hunters-point-shipyard-toxic-cleanup

Almost half of toxic cleanup at Hunters Point Shipyard is questionable or faked, according to initial review

City’s goals for housing, affordable housing in doubt after fraud at city’s biggest redevelopment project “much worse” than thought
By Chris Roberts@cbloggy Jan 26, 2018, 9:32am PST
SHAREMORE


Almost half of the work done by the contractor hired by the U.S. Navy to clean the heavily polluted former shipyard at Hunters Point in preparation for the city’s biggest redevelopment project in a century might have been either falsified or is questionable enough to require retesting, an initial review by contractors hired by the U.S. Navy has found.

Contractors and workers with Tetra Tech, a Pasadena-based company with a long history of winning government contracts, were first found to have falsified soil samples in 2012, revelations that led the federal Environmental Protection Agency to halt transfers of shipyard land for development. More accusations of wrongdoing from former shipyard cleanup workers triggered the ensuing review of more than a decade’s worth of data produced by Tetra Tech.

And of that data, more than 48 percent is “suspect” or has “evidence of potential data manipulation or falsification,” according to a series of draft reports compiled by a team of third-party contractors presented to the Navy and obtained by Curbed SF via a public records request.

The findings are still in draft form and have not been publicly released. But they represent only the latest setback at the shipyard, where progress has largely been on hold since 2016, and they do not bode well for the future.

“That’s the best way to put it,” said Kathryn Higley, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at Oregon State University hired as an outside expert on decontamination, who serves as a liaison to the community. “What they have found is a lot of data falsification.”

This development is a vindication for neighborhood activists and environmental watchdogs, who have long claimed public safety and transparency have been sacrificed in order to speed the real-estate development along.
A view of the shipyard from the open areas near the new townhomes and flats at The Shipyard SF. Home prices range from $775,000 for 740 square feet, and $1.5 million for a two-bedroom.

It also casts serious doubt on San Francisco’s ability to meet its current goals for building badly needed market-rate and affordable housing.

The transformation of the former San Francisco Naval Shipyard—home of a Cold War-era nuclear warfare research laboratory—is part of the largest redevelopment project in San Francisco since the 1906 earthquake, according to developer Five Point.

Since the 1990s, at least $1 billion in taxpayer money has been spent in removing radioactive and industrial contamination from the area. As of 2014, Tetra Tech had been awarded contracts in excess of $300 million, NBC Bay Area reported.


Spokespeople for the Navy and the real-estate developer at the San Francisco Shipyard, Five Point, declined to comment on the findings. Five Point is closely associated with mega-developer Lennar, which negotiated with the city the development plan for the shipyard.

Local elected officials, city bureaucrats, and Bayview-Hunters Point community members tasked with observing the cleanup would not comment.
“What they have found is a lot of data falsification.”

Environmental watchdogs have petitioned the federal government, asking for the contractor, Tetra Tech, to have its license to conduct such cleanup projects revoked.

They are also repeating earlier calls for the cleanup to be held to a higher standard.

“We are pleased and feeling vindicated that the government agencies that helped cover upthe radioactive scandal at the shipyard now seem to be admitting that the problem is greater than they ever admitted before,” said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction, a nonprofit that’s been closely monitoring the cleanup since the 1990s.

“It’s been bad news, and it’s the ultimate, ‘We told you so,’ but the problem is people are living next to it,” he added. “They still plan on building thousands of homes there.”

Areas of the former shipyard, including the most toxic sites, are also at risk of becoming inundated by the bay due to sea-level rise, observed Angel, whose group wants the cleanup held to a much higher standard.

“San Francisco Bay is going to swallow the contamination that they plan on leaving there unless something changes.”








Chris Roberts@cbloggy


I feel like this would be the creepiest building in SF even if it weren't used for secret military tests
2:22 PM - Aug 5, 2017 · Hunters Point Naval Shipyard
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A privately owned drydock and boatyard taken over by the Navy during World War II, the shipyard has been responsible for major changes in the city’s demographic and economic makeup.

The promise of wartime and Cold War-era jobs drew thousands of people to the southeastern corner of San Francisco, many of them black.

When the Navy vacated the shipyard in 1974, thousands of middle-class, single-earner, union jobs vanished. By nearly every account, this caused an economic crisis from which the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood has never fully recovered.

Demands to replace the shipyard with another source of jobs and opportunity began well before the last aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines left.

Transforming the more than 400 acres of docks, workshops, test-sites, and landfills into the hub of a new neighborhood with more than 2 million square feet of office space and more than 12,000 homes is a mammoth undertaking that has already spanned decades and attracted international attention—and investment.

The project has proved high-profile enough to attract renown architect Sir David Adjaye, who designed the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, to be its master designer.

So far, property developer Five Point Holdings, an affiliate of Miami-based homebuilding giant Lennar Corporation, and the self-described “largest developer of mixed-use communities in coastal California,” has built and sold about 300 townhomes and condominiums at what it has dubbed the “The SF Shipyard.”

Homebuyers are praised as “visionaries” buying into a “bold” future, with the promise of bars, restaurants, and shopping where empty lots and forbidding, rusting industrial buildings stand today.

Some of the area’s industrial heritage is incorporated into Adjaye’s design elements, but when selling The SF Shipyard, Lennar does not emphasize what made the naval shipyard such a vital military base: A nuclear warfare research lab, an endpoint for ships irradiated during hydrogen bomb tests, and a general waste dump in an era when radioactive material like radium was treated like common garbage.
A view of an area where soil has been removed and tested for cleanup. Nearly half of areas like this at the shipyard show evidence of potential data manipulation or falsification, according to an initial review.

This contamination was serious enough for the area to be listed in 1989 as an EPA Superfund site, the government’s official list of the country’s most toxic areas that pose a risk to the public.

Fulfillment of the developers’ vision—and further transfer of former shipyard land from the Navy to Five Point—has been on pause since September 2016, after Tetra Tech, the firm contracted by the Navy to do the cleanup, was found to have faked at least part of its work.

Following Tetra Tech’s admission of swapping soil samples, a $7,000 fine from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that was waived on appeal, and a promise that all was well from the company, more former Tetra Tech workers and contractors once employed at the shipyard stepped forward in 2017 and alleged that fraud at the site was more organized and more widespread than the company admitted.


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Those revelations triggered a review of all of Tetra Tech’s data to date. The ensuing review by third-party contractors hired by the Navy found almost half of Tetra Tech’s work dating back at least a decade is “suspect,” according to draft findings prepared for the Navy and obtained by Curbed SF via a public-records request.

Out of 853 discrete tested “units” at the shipyard—lengths of trench, areas of soil, or buildings—414 were identified as “suspect” or showing “evidence of potential data manipulation or falsification,” and have been recommended for retesting, the draft report found.


The findings do not apply to the areas of land already developed where people are currently housed. Those areas were used for base housing or other non-research, non-industrial activities, and have been declared safe by the EPA and the Navy.

Michael Clinebell, a spokesman for Five Point, directed all inquiries to the Navy.

In SEC filings, the company said that it could be until 2022 that all of the next 90 acres are transferred, “although it is possible that delays relating to environmental investigation and remediation could slow the remaining transfers” even further.


“We currently anticipate that we will close land sales for over 2,000 homesites between 2019 and 2022” at the shipyard and at nearby Candlestick Point, the company said in filings. “We are also working on plans for approximately 1.0 million sq. ft. of vertical development, including office space, a hotel, and retail space expected to be built by 2022.”

In an e-mailed statement, a spokesman for the Navy declined to comment on the findings, calling them “incomplete” until “comments” from the federal, state, and local environmental agencies can be received.

“The Navy must take this quality assurance step to ensure public confidence in the data evaluation process,” said Derek Robinson, the Navy’s environmental coordinator responsible for overseeing the cleanup.

Findings are expected to be finalized and published ahead of a public meeting scheduled for January 31.
David Anton (left) points to a map of the shipyard at a June press conference announcing a petition asking the federal government to revoke Tetra Tech’s license to perform environmental cleanup. A later review prepared for the Navy found issue with nearly half of the work done by the company.

The Navy also declined to estimate how much longer the cleanup would take or how much longer the project would be delayed in light of the years of work that must be redone—but, according to the draft findings, it could be many years.

The work done by Tetra Tech deemed suspect was done over a period ranging from 2005 to 2016, according to the review.

In addition to retesting the Tetra Tech work deemed suspect, the Navy will likely redo even more of the cleanup work presently considered clean out of an abundance of caution.

“Because it is impossible to determine whether every instance of potential data manipulation or falsification has been identified, the Navy recommends additional surveys and sampling beyond the areas with evidence of data manipulation,” according to the draft report, authored by contractors Battelle, Cabrera Services, CH2M, Perma-Fix Environmental Services, and SC&A Environmental Services and Consulting, and reviewed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities and Argonne National Laboratory.


The finding means a delay of at least another few years, and raise questions about the project’s long-term viability. But whether or not the project is scaled back, any delay seriously threatens the city’s ability to produce enough housing to keep up with demand, and also jeopardizes the city’s affordable housing goals.

The 12,000 units at the shipyard were a key part of the late Mayor Ed Lee’s promise to build or rehabilitate 30,000 housing units by 2020. A civil grand jury report from 2014 notes:


Having close to 40,000 units “entitled”, or approved by Planning, is extremely healthy for achieving the 30K goal. [...] It is important to note that just three projects, Hunter’s [sic] Point/Candlestick Redevelopment (10,500 units), Treasure Island ( 7,800 units) and Park Merced (5,860 units) represent over 60% of the entitled units.

There are also 1,844 units of affordable housing planned for the site.

For years, community and environmental activists have accused the Navy, its contractors, and various regulatory agencies—including the federal EPA and the state Department of Toxic Substances Control—of prioritizing real-estate development and speed over health and safety.

“We always knew it was much worse than the Navy admitted,” said Steven Castleman, an attorney and associate law professor at Golden Gate University School of Law’s Environmental Law and Justice Clinic, and lead attorney in a petition filed with the NRC to revoke Tetra Tech’s license.


There’s no question the “fraud” was organized and directed from above, rather than the independent actions of a few rogue employees, Castleman told Curbed SF in an interview. “The question is, how high up does it go?”


Immense political pressure has been applied to the shipyard project, which involves some of San Francisco’s most powerful and influential figures. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and then-Mayor Gavin Newsom were the chief proponents of a 2008 voter initiative okaying the development project, with the promise that it would create “8,000 permanent jobs” and “up to 2,500 affordable homes.” It won by an almost 2-to-1 margin.

Another competing ballot proposition that would have guaranteed 30 percent of the homes at the shipyard remain permanently affordable was opposed by Sen. Feinstein and Newsom. It failed.

Shipyard backers have gone as far afield as China to lure investors to contribute the estimated $8 billion needed to develop the shipyard with the promise of EB-5 visas, in which entrepreneurs and investors can receive a green card in exchange for capital.

Last summer, investors with Golden Gate Global, an EB-5 fund involved with the shipyard, were treated to a catered lunch at the park overlooking the shipyard. Investors munched on tacos and salsa from Nopalito, while a message from former Mayor Willie Brown thanking them for their business played on a big-screen television.

The video made no mention of the clean-up’s many, ongoing problems, or the vestiges of the area’s toxic, radioactive past, including the buildings still deemed too unsafe for habitation, many of which are visible from the park.

Initial results from the data review were presented to city officials and representatives from the developer Five Point last June, according to documents obtained by Curbed SF via a records request.
One of many advertisements for new homes available at The SF Shipyard.

In the months since then, elected officials and city bureaucrats have proven reluctant to discuss the ongoing saga at the shipyard.

An aide for Supervisor Malia Cohen, a Bayview native who represents the area, did not respond to requests for comment after Curbed SF shared documents detailing these findings.

Deirdre Hussey, a spokesman for Acting Mayor London Breed who fulfilled the same role for the late Mayor Ed Lee, said the office would have no comment.

Tamsen Drew, who oversees the shipyard for the Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, a quasi-state agency that took over from the abolished Redevelopment Agency, did not respond to requests for comment.

And Veronica Hunnicutt, a prominent figure in Bayview Hunters-Point who chairs the shipyard’s “citizens advisory committee,” an unpaid panel of community members to whom Navy and EPA officials occasionally report, also declined to comment.

“I can tell you that we have been told that this matter is under investigation, and the Navy will respond to the Tetra Tech matter and to the CAC and other parties when their investigation is complete,” she said in an email. She did not respond when offered results from the investigation.

“The best way to say it is, the amount of resampling that needs to be done is more than they had thought,” said Amy Brownell, an environmental engineer with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, which is observing the cleanup. “But nobody can give you an exact number. That’s what these reports are debating.”

The Navy and the various regulatory agencies are currently determining how much more retesting or additional work will be needed, said Kathryn Higley, the nuclear scientist from Oregon State University.

In the meantime, officials with the EPA and other agencies have assured potential homebuyers, as well as worried workers at the nearby Candlestick State Park and from the San Francisco Police Department, which maintains an evidence warehouse at the shipyard, that the shipyard is safe and a wise investment, according to emails obtained by a public records request.


Most of the radiation at the shipyard was in 28 miles of sewer and storm drains, down which various waste was dumped between the 1940s and 1974, when the Navy vacated the shipyard.

Ships returning from the Pacific Ocean and Operation Crossroads, when the U.S. military tested the most powerful nuclear weapons in its arsenal at Bikini Atoll, docked at Hunters Point, where they were “cleaned” by sandblasting. Radioactive materials were frequently disposed of by dumping down the drains.

From the 1940s until the late 1960s, the shipyard was the site of the Navy’s Radiological Defense Laboratory. Researchers injected animals with various doses of radiation, including uranium and plutonium, to ascertain the effects of exposure to nuclear weapons and resultant fallout on living things. The Navy believes there is a “possibility radioactive waste material” from those tests were also dumped down sinks and drains.

The shipyard was also home to several waste dumps and scrap heaps, into which toxic or radioactive material like dials and gauges painted with glow-in-the-dark radium paint were unceremoniously tossed. In addition to cancer-causing radionuclides, there is toxic contamination from heavy metals, petroleum byproducts, paint thinner, pesticides, and polychlorinated biphenyls, a lubricant banned in 1979.

Much of this waste will remain in place on-site, covered by a concrete cap and separated from the nearby bay tides by a concrete wall. Critics, including Greenaction, say contamination from the dumps has seeped into the bay, which will inundate the disposal sites in coming decades thanks to sea-level rise.

The full scope of the shipyard’s pollution problems wasn’t known until a Navy review was published in 2004. And it wasn’t until 2006 that the Navy began a “time-critical removal action” to reduce “exposure to radioactive contamination for surrounding populations and nearby ecosystems, including the nearby wetlands and the San Francisco Bay.”

By then, women living in Bayview Hunters Point were experiencing rates of breast and cervical cancer far higher than other parts of the city.


There’s no shortage of health hazards in the neighborhood. Two freeways bisect the area, which contains most of the heavy industry left in San Francisco. Until a decade ago, PG&E operated a gas-fired power plant within a stone’s throw of housing.

To this day, neighborhood residents complain of disproportionate ill health. Many blame the toxic contamination at the shipyard, and declare this concentration of pollution in a traditionally low-income community of color “environmental racism.”


For purposes of cleanup and redevelopment, the shipyard has been divided into alphanumeric parcels. Strict rules govern what can be built on the most polluted areas of the shipyard. Some areas are off-limits to schools, hospitals, and other uses that might attract children or pregnant women. On others, residents are forbidden from digging in the soil or planting vegetable gardens. Still others—like the former landfill—are reserved for sporting fields, and can’t be used for housing or retail.


Why the cleanup was not sufficient

On each parcel, the length of sewer or storm drains were divided into “trench units.” Dirt pulled from the trench units and used as backfill were designated as “fill units.” Each “unit” could contain hundreds of thousands of individual soil samples.

The Navy first discovered alleged wrongdoing at Parcel C, the pier where ships returning from Operation Crossroads were docked. Here, the Navy found “significantly higher concentrations” of contaminants than initially reported by Tetra Tech.

Out of a total of 200 trench units, fill units, and buildings sampled at Parcel C, there is “evidence of potential data manipulation or falsification” at 134 of them, according to the third-party review of Tetra Tech’s data.

At Parcel E, where some of the Navy’s early radiological testing was conducted, and where the Navy later spilled a large amount of cesium, 104 of tested “units” have been recommended for retesting.

On Parcel G, the ratio of verified clean samples to samples that need retesting is almost 40-60: 76 units recommended for retesting to 96 samples deemed clean.

Significantly, in late 2016, even as evidence of fraud was mounting, the Navy argued that Parcel G should be cleared for residential use, not just use as retail or office space.

Tetra Tech is alleged to have faked data in several ways. According to the draft report:
When “sufficiently low levels of contamination were not obtained,” Tetra Tech would fetch samples from a “different area known to have lower radioactivity, and reported as having come from the location being investigated”;
When Tetra Tech found samples or data dirtier or more radioactive than EPA-mandated levels of safety, they were discarded;
Instead of sampling areas with known radioactivity, they would collect samples from nearby areas, and pass those off as coming from the radioactive location;
When low levels of contamination were not “obtained,” they would simply “move 5 to 10 feet in another direction” to collect clean dirt;
Machines used to screen material were ran at a speed too fast to detect radiation;
And soil known to be dirty was blocked from being sent to the offsite lab for testing.

In an ironic twist, Tetra Tech was so sloppy that it also performed unnecessary cleanup work on areas that were clean, according to the draft report. The draft report states that a device used to detect radium at the shipyard was “consistently biased high,” and so areas that did not need cleanup were scheduled for “remediation.”

Retesting will involve either a review of archived soil samples, a review of the data or methods, or—in most cases—another trip out to the shipyard to pull new soil samples and test them, according to the draft report.

That may not be enough to satisfy some shipyard critics like Castleman and the watchdogs with Greenaction, who say that all of Tetra Tech’s work is suspect and must be redone in order for there to be public confidence in the cleanup, as well as a scientific foundation for the hard sell to the public of the shipyard as safe and clean.

As recently as 2015, the shipyard was described in the San Francisco Chronicle as “once-toxic.” And Olson Lee, the director of the city’s office of housing, referred to the area as a “former Superfund site,” despite the shipyard still being listed on the EPA’s list of the country’s most toxic areas and growing evidence that it was still unknown if the shipyard was no longer toxic.

“We hope that this new investigation will lead to a much better cleanup of this radioactive and toxic mess,” said Greenaction’s Angel. “Lennar and Five Point have friends in high places, right in City Hall. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but the facts are clear: our government agencies worked with corporate developers to attempt to minimize an enormous radioactive and toxic waste problem that needs to be addressed.”

A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed.

A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed. Here's why it won't happen

(This article is shockingly dismissive of the dangers of residential development on brownfield sites like the one described in Brisbane, CA)


Land that is part of an area being considered for a new 4,400-unit housing development is seen from above in Brisbane, Calif. (Josh Edelson / For The Times)
Liam DillonContact Reporter



Just beyond San Francisco’s city limits lies 640 acres of land that could help solve some of California’s biggest problems.

A developer wants to build 4,400 new homes there — one of the largest projects recently proposed in one of the country’s most unaffordable regions. The development would overlook a railway that drops riders into the heart of San Francisco in 15 minutes, reducing the need for cars and cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that come from them.



State and regional leaders have endorsed the project. But its fate rests with Brisbane, a city of 4,700 people that annexed the property 55 years ago. And no one, not even the developer, thinks Brisbane’s residents will approve all 4,400 homes.

“Unfortunately, we believe that their ceiling is going to be below that,” said Jonathan Scharfman, the general manager for the developer, Universal Paragon Corp.



The project, Brisbane Baylands, reveals how few incentives local governments have to accept large developments — even as the state is pushing to lower housing costs and funnel growth toward existing cities and nearby mass transit to combat climate change. Brisbane residents are wary of a project that could triple the city’s population. Under California’s tax system, Brisbane also earns more money if it rejects the current plan in favor of potential alternatives with more hotel rooms and space for businesses — but no homes.

The Bay Area’s dire need for housing makes the debate over the Baylands project “particularly painful,” said Ben Metcalf, director of the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

“It is frustrating that as a state and as a constellation of local jurisdictions we are constantly making decisions that aren’t the best for alleviating poverty, housing affordability, furthering our state’s economy or meeting our climate change goals,” Metcalf said.

For their part, some Brisbane residents feel besieged by pressure from housing activists, business groups, state lawmakers, San Francisco politicians, newspaper editorials and others beyond the city’s boundaries. An old rail yard and garbage dump contaminated the land, and opponents contend they want to protect anyone who might decide to live there even after regulators approve a cleanup. More than that, Brisbane residents say, outsiders don’t understand how much the Baylands project would upend their community.


“We’re a small town,” City Councilman W. Clarke Conway said at a meeting on the project last fall, “and we’re a small town by choice.”

Bill Dettmer, left, speaks with a group of men who regularly meet and discuss local politics and civic issues at Madhouse Coffee in Brisbane, Calif. Dettmer thinks a developer should be allowed to build housing on an old rail yard in the city. (Josh Edelson / For The Times)

Brisbane’s main drag is Visitacion Avenue. It slopes upward for five blocks, starting at a city park and continuing through mom-and-pop shops, cafes and restaurants. The rest of Brisbane comprises office parks, a strip mall and mostly single-family homes built throughout the town’s hills.

“This is the land that time forgot,” said Greg Lee, 55, an electrical engineer who has lived in the city for more than two decades.

San Bruno Mountain, which rises a quarter-mile into the sky, is Brisbane’s landmark, and residents have fought to preserve it. In the 1960s, they blocked a developer from leveling the mountaintop and building enough new homes for 70,000 people. In 1980, after years of battling another massive project on the mountain, residents received a last-minute reprieve from the federal government, which declared San Bruno a critical habitat for the endangered callippe silverspot butterfly.

Anti-development fervor has continued. About a decade ago, a city councilman suggested sidestepping a state housing law that requires cities to plan for growth by zoning for homes where nothing would ever get built — the bottom of Brisbane’s lagoon.

Residents’ efforts to protect Brisbane’s small-town feel make large changes hard to accept, said Paul Bouscal, 58, a San Francisco water department employee who has lived in the area since 1982.

The Baylands, he said, plays on fears of Brisbane getting big.

“For our town to grow like that, it would be too much, too fast,” Bouscal said.



It might be easier for residents and elected officials to welcome growth if the city received more tax dollars for doing so. But the opposite is true.

Because of tax limits established in 1978 by Proposition 13, local governments generally receive more revenue from sales and hotel room taxes than property taxes. Proposition 13 limited property tax rates to 1% of a home’s taxable value and restricted how quickly that taxable value could increase after a purchase.

Last year, Brisbane hired a consultant who found that the city would net $1 million a year in tax revenue by approving the Baylands. But if the city instead approved a project with lots more commercial space, a larger hotel and no housing, Brisbane would gain $9 million annually — an amount equivalent to more than half the city’s current day-to-day operating budget.

Developers are always going to face opposition because of residents’ concerns about their communities changing, said Mark Stivers, a longtime state housing policy staffer. But the tax system is another big reason the state has a housing shortage, he said.

“I’d like to think if just the fiscal incentives were reversed, if a city could make as much money off housing as they could retail, we’d be having a very different conversation in California,” Stivers said.

Jonathan Scharfman, general manager of Universal Paragon Corp., describes the area where his company hopes to build a 4,400-unit housing development. (Josh Edelson / For The Times)

Debate over the Baylands has divided the town and dominated Brisbane politics for at least a decade. More than half of Brisbane residents said in a 2015 city-sponsored poll that they were OK with some housing on the Baylands site. But just 3% backed a project of more than 4,000 homes such as the developer is proposing.


Bill Dettmer, 63, spent a recent morning at Madhouse Coffee, one of the city’s main gathering spots, trying to convince skeptical neighbors that the city should support the housing. Dettmer moved to Brisbane 50 years ago and does maintenance work in the city.

“I see a lot of stuff,” Dettmer said. “I see beds in garages. You have to increase the [housing] supply. If you really want to help out people, let them live in dignity. It just seems like a no-brainer.”

Many local opponents cite the land’s history — not hostility to growth — for why they’re against the project. San Francisco used to dump its garbage on the site, and a railroad company repaired its trains there. Longtime residents remember watching tires burn.

Scharfman, the developer’s general manager, said Universal Paragon Corp. will clean up the land and won’t begin building until all environmental agencies responsible say it’s safe. He likened the process to how an old rail yard at San Francisco’s Mission Bay was cleaned up and now has thousands of homes.

Still, some Brisbane residents say they don’t trust regulators will get it right, because what’s known about the toxicity of chemicals can change over time. Even though they won’t live in the Baylands, opponents believe they have a responsibility to shield those who might.

“Why do we have a seat belt law? Why do we have a helmet law? They’re anti-stupidity laws to protect the general population,” said Michele Salmon, 63, who was born and raised in Brisbane.

Salmon said she understood housing problems were real and lamented the lack of space to accommodate a growing population.

“I do feel sorry that the younger generation is not going to get to live the life that we did,” she said. “But it’s a different time.”

State and regional officials have few tools to push Brisbane. Every eight years, the state tells every city and county to plan for the construction of a certain number of new homes to accommodate planned population growth. Between 2007 and 2014, Brisbane’s goal was 401 houses. Developers built a little more than a third of that target, but the city faces no consequences for the lack of home building.

Similarly, regional agencies such as the Assn. of Bay Area Governments have to plan for urban growth as part of the the state’s climate change efforts. California won’t meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets, regulators have said, without a significant reduction in driving fueled by more people walking, biking and using mass transit. The Baylands project and its 4,400 homes next to a Caltrain station are written into the region’s climate change proposal, but that means nothing for the project’s actual approval.

“This is a plan, an expectation of how we could grow,” said Leah Zippert, an Assn. of Bay Area Governments spokeswoman. “It is not a mandate to build. It’s not a mandate to do anything.”

The Brisbane City Council plans to make a key decision on the Baylands this summer, including whether it supports any housing on the site. But the council expects to put that proposal on the ballot next year. Brisbane’s residents will be the ones with the last word.

The Unbalanced Cost of PCE Spills

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Dru Shields

Written by Jeff Carnahan, L.P.G., Senior Project Manager, EnviroForensics.
As seen in the August 2011 issue of Cleaner & Launderer

PDF Version

As nearly all dry cleaners have become keenly aware, the use of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) in the textiles industry and the management of wastes resulting from its use have become as heavily regulated as nearly any other industrial chemical to date.  In fact, environmental concerns resulting from the current or historical use of PCE are practically as common as those arising from gasoline stations.  As discovered by an increasing number of dry cleaner owners or operators; however, the amount of time and money that is required to investigate and ultimately clean-up sites that have been impacted with PCE can be several times higher than at typical gas station sites.  Additionally, it seems that PCE releases are on every regulator’s radar these days.  This article discusses a few of the complicating factors about PCE releases that make them so unique. 

PCE is Heavier than Water

Part of the reason that PCE releases are so challenging to investigate and remediate pertains to the properties of the chemical itself.  The specific gravity of PCE solvent is 1.6230, which means that it is over 60% heavier than water under normal conditions.  This characteristic makes it possible to recover and reuse solvent from mixtures with water in gravity separators.  To demonstrate, let’s first look at the example of how petroleum releases behave in the subsurface. 

Petroleum products, including Stoddard solvent, are less dense than water.  A significant release of gasoline or petroleum solvent will typically travel downward through soils where a portion of the impacts will have a propensity to be caught up in the soil matrix.  Once a petroleum spill reaches the groundwater table it floats and migrates horizontally.  As a result, most petroleum releases are fairly shallow in nature and comparatively simple to reach for remediation purposes. 

Releases of chlorinated solvents, such as PCE, also travel downward.  Once the release comes into contact with groundwater, a fraction of the PCE will start dissolving until its solubility limit is reached.  The remaining portion will continue to travel downward until an obstruction is reached, such as a clay layer, where it may pool and act as a deeper source by continuously dissolving PCE into the water.  If multiple subsurface clay layers exist there may be multiple continuing sources of groundwater impacts.  As a result, releases of PCE can be deep and very complex in the subsurface.  Additionally, if not carefully designed and implemented by an environmental consultant experienced with PCE releases, clay layers may be penetrated by soil borings and pooled solvent may be remobilized into deeper aquifers; making conditions worse.

PCE is Resistant to Natural Breakdown

There are naturally occurring microbes in the subsurface that breakdown organic pollutants into less toxic or non-toxic substances through a process called biodegradation, or bioremediation.  These microbes may directly ingest the pollutant, breakdown it down chemically for use as energy (electron transfer), or give off enzymes that destroys its chemical bonds.  The ability of microbes to use (metabolize) the pollutants depends on the chemical characteristics of the subsurface, and what types of microbes are present.  In most microbes, including bacteria, the metabolic process requires the exchange of oxygen and carbon. 

The biodegradation of petroleum compounds is conducted largely by populations of microbes that thrive in an oxygen-rich subsurface environment.  Recall that most petroleum impacts are present in the upper most part of the groundwater table where oxygen from the atmosphere is more likely to result in high levels of dissolved oxygen.  Therefore, many petroleum releases are already in the process of naturally occurring biodegradation before they are even discovered.  In fact, studies have shown that most petroleum groundwater plumes don’t extend much beyond 400 feet from the source area.  A common and cost-effective remediation strategy in these situations involves simply monitoring the effects until cleanup objectives are reached, which is called Monitored Natural Attenuation.

Conversely to petroleum releases, the type of microbes responsible for the biodegradation of PCE and other chlorinated solvents thrive in a subsurface environment without oxygen (anaerobic conditions).  The most common anaerobic process for degrading PCE is an electron transfer process called reductive dechlorination.  In this process, hydrogen atoms present in the groundwater are substituted for chlorine atoms in the solvent molecule in order to release an electron during the microbes’ respiration process.  For this to occur, it is necessary for there to be an adequate supply of food to sustain the microbe population during the process. 

Using PCE as the primary contaminant during ongoing reductive dechlorination, each time a chlorine atom is plucked off of the parent molecule; PCE turns to trichloroethene (TCE), TCE to dichloroethene (DCE), DCE to vinyl chloride, and vinyl chloride to ethene.  The conditions present in the subsurface can be studied carefully and a remediation plan can be devised that takes advantage of this complicated, naturally occurring process to help achieve cleanup objectives where spills of PCE have occurred.  Many times, anaerobic conditions in the contaminated groundwater must be enhanced and a source of food for the microbes must be delivered to the subsurface to speed up the reductive dechlorination process.  This adds significant cost and time to remediation projects, as compared to the monitored natural attenuation of a petroleum plume.

PCE Vapors are Persistent and Mobile

Not only is PCE resistant to natural degradation when it is dissolved in groundwater, it also can remain in the subsurface in its vapor phase for a long period of time without breaking down.  As all dry cleaners know, the volatile nature of PCE means that it will evaporate from a liquid to a vapor easily; that is one of the characteristics that make it such a good cleaning solvent.  However, once PCE is released to the subsurface it also volatilizes and disperses through unsaturated soils.  If the vapors reached an occupied structure and migrate into the occupied space, vapor intrusion (VI) has occurred.  VI concerns are at the top of most every regulator’s list of concerns since PCE is considered a probable carcinogen, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of revising and finalizing its guidance on the issue.

The petroleum hydrocarbon compound Benzene is a major component of gasoline spills, is also very volatile and is a known carcinogen.  In the presence of oxygen, once again, benzene vapors have been shown to naturally degrade in the subsurface environment.  As a result, the occurrence of VI concerns resulting from releases of petroleum products is limited.  Since PCE vapors do not readily breakdown, they have been known to travel great distances from even minor solvent spills.  Many dry cleaners are located close to their customers in highly populated areas, and as a result the risk of VI to occur from a subsurface release is compounded.  The VI exposure pathway is an extremely complicated process, which requires a sophisticated and knowledgeable environmental professional to adequately investigate and address. 

Although the cost of investigating and addressing VI issues can greatly affect the total dollar amount of PCE remediation projects, the potential cost of third-party legal concerns related to off-site migration of PCE vapors are typically not even quantified. 

These are only a few of the reasons that releases of PCE from neighborhood dry cleaners are commonly so much more expensive to address than those from the typical corner gas station.  It is crucial that owners and operators of dry cleaning operations that have historically used or presently use PCE be aware of all potential funding sources; such as historical insurance policies, or even potentially redevelopment clean-up grants.  Only a few states actually have remediation trust funds established for cleaning up dry cleaner sites.  If you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of having the financial responsibility for a release of PCE to the subsurface, be sure to consult with an environmental professional that fully understands the special issues related dry cleaner sites and can make smart, cost-effective decisions.