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A toxicologist has determined that groundwater contaminated with chromium 6, which caused the city to halt construction work on the Harrison Street skate park, poses a minimal health risk. 

While the Dec. 9 report prepared for the city by Emeryville-based SOMA Corporation has city officials, parents and residents breathing a sigh of relief, many are wondering how excavation for the skate park was approved when the existence of the chrome 6 plume, 40 feet west of the site, was well documented. 

Chrome 6, or hexavalent chromium, is a Class A carcinogen that is harmful if swallowed and especially dangerous if inhaled, according to Environmental Protection Agency.  

The report, released to the City Council Tuesday, determined “the inhalation of hexavalent chromium in water is not considered a complete exposure pathway and ingestion of the water is not likely.”  

Berkeley resident Carol Denney said she is not convinced. “The tyranny of these things is that you just don’t know for sure,” she said. “I walked by the site a few days ago and there were workers moving the dirt around without any protective clothing or inhalation protection.” 

Another resident, LA Wood, who has closely followed the development of the Harrison Street soccer fields and skate park, said he is concerned because Codornices Creek runs along the north side of the field and there has not yet been a flood mitigation plan worked out as required by the use permit. Codornices Creek runs through both residential and industrial areas and is considered by many to be highly contaminated, Wood said. 

On Nov. 17, groundwater contaminated with chrome 6 was discovered in the bottom of pits being excavated for nine-foot-deep skate bowls on the south side of the newly completed Harrison Street soccer field. The water had apparently been drawn from a chrome 6 plume 40 feet to the west of the excavation site. 

The soccer field had been closed for seeding prior to the beginning of the excavation. 

The city has been aware of the chrome 6 plume near the site of the skate park since 1990 when Western Roto Engravers Color Tech on Sixth Street, the company responsible for the contamination, disclosed the hazard.  

Since that time, Color Tech has spent nearly $1 million to remedy the problem including hiring a environmental consultant to provide the city with semi-annual reports monitoring the plumes toxicity and migration. 

But despite ample information about the nearby plume, which had been collected by the city’s Toxics Management Division of the Planning and Development Department, it was never detected or addressed by any of the four environmental studies of 6.4 acre site commissioned by UC Berkeley, the former owner of the property. The city of Berkeley primarily relied on the university’s studies when purchasing the property, for which it paid $2.8 million in 1999. 

“It was a failure of communication,” said Nabil Al-Hadithy, director of the TMD. “The chrome 6 plume should have been a topic of conversation.” 

Al-Hadithy said the city is considering at least three measures to reduce the chances of such an oversight occurring again. One will be requiring a phase one study for all major developments. The study researches the business history of an area to determine the nature and likelihood of toxins in the air, ground and water. If there is significant information pointing to contamination, a phase 2 study is conducted looking for specific toxins. 

“Phase 1 studies usually cover about up to a one mile radius,” Al-Hadithy said. “They are not 100 percent sure but they give you a darn good tool to start with.” 

Any future excavation west of Sacramento Street will be closely looked at because the likelihood for encountering groundwater is greater there. “This will take some ironing out mostly because it will require extra staffing,” Al-Hadithy said. “We may have to hire some temporary workers.” 

The third measure will be taking advantage of the city’s Geographic Information System in which volumes of information on properties throughout Berkeley would be accessible via the Internet. “We would have somebody come in and take all the thousands and thousands of documents we have in this office and make it available on a map,” Al-Hadithy said. “That way a developer, home buyer or contractor can go to the site and at a glance find out what is known about a particular site and any surrounding sites.” 

He added that the map would be inexact but a good for a quick review. 

Meanwhile the skate park is in limbo. The original design is no longer a possibility and any new designs will face some tough challenges according to Lisa Caronna, director of the Parks and Waterfront Department .  

A new design will have to be shallow enough to avoid the groundwater table and deep enough to make the bowl challenging for skaters.  

“We have to start over,” said Caronna. “We have to come up with a new design, determine cost perimeters and then go to th