Page One

The discovery of two submerged fuel tanks beneath the Harrison House Adult Shelter in West Berkeley means another environmental problem for the city-owned property and another cleanup cost for taxpayers. 

Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (BOSS), a Berkeley-based nonprofit, operates the homeless shelter, which houses about 80 men and women. On Tuesday, City Council will review a request by BOSS executive director boona cheema to divert $119,000 in emergency service grant funds from other BOSS projects to pay for part of the cost of removing the tanks. 

City officials are planning to remove the two tanks despite a geotechnical report that recommended leaving them in place. Three contractors have submitted proposals to the Department of Public Works for removing the tanks. Their estimates range widely from $86,000 to $266,000. 

A $30,000 geotechnical report, completed in December by an Oakland-based geotechnical survey company, Kleinfelder, Inc., advised a less expensive option. This strategy, which would cost about $20,000, not including future 

monitoring, would be to abandon the underground storage tanks in place after removing any fuels, most likely diesel, in the tanks and surrounding soil. 

“Based on its lower cost, minimal impact to the building, the physical removal of residual tanks’ contents, removal of some impacted soil and reduced disruption to Harrison House residents, abandonment of the [tanks] in place would be the preferred closure alternative,” according to the report. 

However, it is city policy to remove underground storage tanks whenever possible. 

“Abandoning the tanks in place is really not an option,” said Patrick Kelch, acting director of the Department of Public Works while Director Rene Cardinaux is on vacation. “It’s city policy to remove the tanks unless it is exorbitantly more expensive than leaving them in place.” 

Another ongoing environmental problem at the Harrison Field area complicates whatever solution the city chooses. The tanks are completely submerged in a plume of groundwater contaminated with the carcinogen hexavalent chromium, or chrome 6, which originated from an engraving company three blocks to the east. To remove the tanks or abandon them in place, the city would have to pump out the contaminated water, store, analyze and treat it, then dispose of it. 

This process, as the city learned in 2001 during the construction of the Harrison Field Skate Park, can be unpredictable and expensive. Kelch said on Friday that the three contractors’ bids to remove the tanks are still being analyzed and he wasn’t sure if they included appropriate options for dealing with complications arising from the presence of contaminated groundwater. 

When the city purchased the 6.4-acre property from UC Berkeley in 2000, it was mostly undeveloped. Only the shelter structure was in place, but over the last three years, the city has developed four soccer fields that are heavily used by the Albany Berkeley Soccer Club and the popular skate park. Future plans for the site include the construction of BOSS’s Ursula Sherman Village, a multi-service homeless facility that will serve up to 130 people, mostly women and children. 

During the excavation of 8-foot bowls for the skate park, contractors struck groundwater laced with chrome 6 and had to halt construction for over a year. The city spent an additional $400,000 (not including staff time) to treat the contaminated water and redesign the skate park to prevent future exposure to the dangerous carcinogen. However, last December, just two months after the park opened to rave reviews, city workers discovered low levels of chrome 6 in two skate bowl basins after a heavy rainstorm. The Department of Parks and Waterfront immediately closed the park. Last month, City Council approved $57,000 to hire an engineer to recommend possible solutions to the ongoing problem. 

Air quality is also an environmental concern at the Harrison site. A $50,000 air quality study, part of the Ursula Sherman Village environmental impact report, detected elevated levels of particulate matter in the air, most likely from a collection of sources including nearby industry, the Berkeley Solid Waste Transfer Station and Interstate 80. Based on the study results, the city posted signs at the entrance to the soccer fields warning parents and children about possible health effects from the airborne particulates. 

The city paid UC Berkeley $2.8 million for the environmentally plagued property. However, in exchange for a substantially reduced price, the city agreed to an as-is clause, which released the university from any liability for the risks which are now being addressed.