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Price tag on skate park doubles

By John Geluardi Daily Planet staff
Friday July 20, 2001

 

City Council officially resurrected the Harrison Field Skate Park project after construction was delayed for months because a cancer-causing toxin surfaced in groundwater during excavation of the park’s skate bowls. 

The discovery of hexivalient chromium, or chrome 6, in the groundwater on Nov. 17 brought construction to a halt. Chrome 6 is a Class A carcinogen that is harmful if swallowed and especially dangerous if inhaled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Without discussing the issue, council unanimously approved the recommendation Tuesday along with other recommendations on the meeting’s consent calendar.  

In doing so, the council approved three things: a staff report declaring the site environmentally safe, a new park design and $410,000 for construction costs and inspection fees.  

That does not include the $365,000 spent on toxic cleanup, project re-design and legal and administrative fees, according to a Parks and Waterfront Department report. These extra fees more than double the original estimated construction cost of $370,000. 

After an eight-month delay, the Council’s approval puts the project officially back on track, according to parks and waterfront officials. 

“We have bids out right now for a new construction company and we expect to have them back by July 31,” said Project Manager Ed Murphy. “We expect to start construction again in the latter part of August.” 

Since the discovery of chrome 6, a private toxic management contractor hauled away 45,000 gallons of contaminated water and another 80,000 gallons were stored next to the site in 20,000 gallon tanks where it was treated and released into a nearby sanitary sewer drain, according to Hazardous Materials Supervisor Nabil Al-Hadithy. 

In addition, the base of the excavated bowls were compacted with gravel, covered with thick sheets of plastic and covered with a six-inch concrete cap to assure groundwater is completely sealed off from the skate park’s surface, according to Al-Hadithy. 

Kate Obenour, one of the founding members of Friends of a Berkeley Skate Park, said in a July 1 letter to the Parks and Waterfront Department that said she was satisfied with the efforts to clean the site up. She also reiterated her opinion of the social value of the skate park. 

“The construction of the skate park is very important to Berkeley teenagers. There needs to be a place where these young, rebellious high-energy, skateboarding athletes can test themselves against the power of gravity and cement,” she wrote. “Our young adult citizens deserve to be treated with respect and not treated as criminals for playing with a piece of board and four wheels.” 

The city has retained outside council to study the possibility of recovering the city’s costs through legal action. City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque did not return calls to specify who would be the subject a potential law suit. But it would most likely be the source of the chrome 6 plume, Western Roto Engravers, Color Tech, which is located two blocks east of the skate park. 

One of the owners of WRE Roto Engravers, Color Tech, Bill MacKay went to the city and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board in 1990 when he learned a tank on his property was leaking the toxic substance. He has since spent over a $1 million removing the tank, cleaning up his property and monitoring the chrome 6 plume, which flows west to Interstate 80 in long, narrow tear-like shape. 

In November, MacKay said he happened to noticed water in the bottom of the nine-foot skate bowls and alerted the city that the water was probably contaminated with chrome 6. Subsequent testing resulted in a stop work order.