Page One

The states’ leading toxics agency has ruled that Campus Bay poses “an imminent or substantial endangerment to the public health or welfare or to the environment because of a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance.” 

The finding is contained in a 33-page site investigation order issued late Wednesday by Barbara J. Cook, the Berkeley-based regional branch chief for the State Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). 

One of the first tangible results of the order will be a new fence going up around the site in the next 15 days marked by signs declaring “Caution: Hazardous Substances Area. Unauthorized Persons Keep Out.” 

The order also calls for: 

• Removal by April 30 of all contaminated marsh soils now stockpiled on the site along with any other sediments left there in 2004. 

• Repairs to the thin cement-and-shredded-wastepaper cap covering the 350,000 yards of contaminated ash and soil already buried on the site. 

• Thorough examinations of past site conditions and remediation efforts.  

• Preparation of a new site assessment to include toxins and contaminants now present on the site. 

• Risk and potential exposure assessments. 

• Implementation of a public participation program. 

Cook’s action comes just as Richmond City Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin is putting the finishing touches on a proposed Feb. 15 City Council resolution calling on the state to give the DTSC jurisdiction over all of Campus Bay as well as the seriously contaminated Richmond Field Station immediately to the west. 

“This order reinforces the urgency of the need for one agency alone to take the lead on both sites because of the profound nature of the toxicity,” McLaughlin said.  

“It’s an outstanding step toward figuring out what happened in the past, what’s actually there now, and whether remediation steps already taken are adequate,” said Sherry Padgett. 

The chief financial officer for Kray Cabling, Padgett works immediately to the east of the site and is a member of Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development, the group which has led the charge of more regulation. 

“They’re asking questions which should have been asked a long time ago,” she said.  

Ethel Dotson, a Richmond resident and a critic of Campus Bay, has already obtained 80 signatures from the community calling for formation of a Community Advisory Group, the public participation spelled out in DTSC regulations. 

Dotson is scheduled to present the list at the same Richmond City Council meeting that will consider McLaughlin’s resolution.  

“We welcome the DTSC’s action,” said Doug Mosteller, a project manager for Cherokee Investment Partners—the financial firm which has teamed with Marin County developer Russ Pitto to develop the South Richmond site and has proposed to build a 1330-unit housing project at Campus Bay. 

Noting that “the Campus Bay site is highly contaminated,” said East Bay Democratic Assemblymember Loni Hancock, “to protect human health, the site must be cleaned up to a standard that fits the proposed use. 

“The public must have confidence in DTSC to make decisions which will lead to an acceptable cleanup. If DTSC needs a site investigation to achieve this goal, then I support this order.” 

The toxics agency’s order reinforces the suspicions of activists who have been protesting the conduct of ongoing work at the site, as well as the plans to build housing directly above a buried hazardous waste dump on the site. 

According to the order, “The public at risk includes those people who work at or visit the site, those who excavate into contaminated soil or groundwater, and/or persons who otherwise come into contact with, inhale or ingest contaminated air, soil or groundwater” including those who work at business near the suit, San Francisco Bay Trail users and pupils and employees at the Making Waves program.  

Cook said there was no evidence of any exposure for the Making Waves pupils, who meet in a building at the site that formerly served as offices of one of the chemical manufacturing companies that heavily polluted the site over a hundred-year span that ended in 1997.  

The widely acclaimed after-school program is immediately adjacent to the 350,000-cubic-yard concrete-and-paper-pulp-capped hazardous waste dump where Cherokee-Simeon Ventures proposes to build the high-rise condo complex. 

“A lot of things happened at the site, and we need to know what are the current soil and water conditions so we can understand how the site can be restored to a condition safe for development,” Cook said 

The order spells out levels of contaminants identified at the site before the commencement of site remediation efforts. The new DTSC order requires a reexamination of the site to determine the present levels of hazardous substances. 

“This order is the first step,” said Cook, “looking at what’s there now and creating a basic risk assessment. We don’t know what remains and what’s been hauled offsite.” 

The original survey found well over 100 hazardous compounds, including:  

Soil Contaminants 

• Arsenic, which is both a lethal poison and a carcinogen at lower doses, at levels up to 3.4 times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s baseline standards defining the threshold for classification as hazardous waste. 

• DDD, a pesticide and a poison when consumed, at levels up to 2,800 times the baseline. 

• DDT, an illegal pesticide and known carcinogen which can be fatal when swallowed, at up to 2100 times the federal baseline. 

• Lead, a metal linked to a whole range of neurological problems in children and a poison with wide-ranging effects, at up to 18 times the federal baseline. 

• Toxaphene, a lethal insecticide which can be absorbed through the skin as well as swallowed and inhaled, at levels up to 46 times the baseline. 

Water Contaminants 

• Arsenic, at up to 4,500 times the acceptable groundwater baseline. 

• Chloroform, a carcinogen lethal at high exposures, at levels up to 340 times baseline. 

• Copper, a possible carcinogen and potential cause of birth defects, at up to 29.2 times baseline. 

• Cis-1,2-dichloroethene, a chemical with anesthetic properties, at up to 146.7 times baseline. 

• Mercury, a neurotoxin known to cause birth defects, at up to 2.9 times baseline. 

• Nickel, a metal known to cause cancer and other health problems, at up to 54 times baseline. 

• 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane, a carcinogen, narcotic and liver poison, at up to 120 times baseline. 

• Tetrachloroethene (also known as perchloroethene, or PCE), a known carcinogen and live and kidney poison at levels of up to 20 times baseline. 

• Toluene, a known carcinogen used in paints, thinners, nail polish and adhesives and other products, at levels 47.3 times baseline. 

• Tricholorethene (TCE), a known carcinogen that also causes liver and kidney damage, at 1,140 times the water table baseline, and 

• Vinyl chloride, which causes both cancer and genetic mutations, at 108 times baseline. 

No definitive site examination has occurred since the ensuing cleanup of upland soils under the supervision of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, which handed site jurisdiction to DTSC following scathing criticisms at a Nov. 6 legislative hearing called by Assemblymember Hancock. 

The board retains supervision over the cleanup of the site’s shoreline marsh area and for all of UC Berkeley’s Field Station immediately to the west.  

“A lot of the insecticide and other hot spots have been cleaned up,” said Doug Mosteller, engineering project manager for Cherokee, a venture capital firm that specializes in restoring contaminated sites—so-called brownfields—to conditions where they are safe for development. 

Cherokee and Simeon Properties, a development and property company headed by Russell Pitto of Marin County, created Cherokee-Simeon, a special purpose company for brownfield development in the Bay Area. 

Cherokee-Simeon is also the developer picked by the UC Berkeley to develop the university’s seriously contaminated Richmond Field Station as a corporate/academic research facility featuring two million square feet of new buildings. 

DTSC will have the final say on whether the housing project can go through. 

Asked about the future of site, Mosteller said Cherokee-Simeon is concentrating on the current site remediation efforts and will consider development projects only after the DTSC’s concerns are fully addressed. ›