Public Meeting Called About Controversial Sherwin Williams Toxic Waste Cleanup

 State Toxic Waste Regulators Hosting Important Update on Emeryville’s Contaminated Sherwin Williams Redevelopment Site

A century of chemical and paint manufacturing left behind dangerous levels of industrial contamination at a large site along Horton Street being redeveloped for housing.

On Thursday, officials from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) will present a “Five year review” of attempts to remove and mitigate contamination, and detail the potential health threats to those choosing to live at the site, or spend long periods of time there. 

DTSC Officials will collect public input at the on-line meeting, though members of the public must RSVP. You can do so here: https://dtsccagov.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pwIiJEamSkOhYkqmKkOB4Q

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 17 from 6:30-8 pm

A DTSC employee and former Sherwin Williams project manager has criticized both the developer, Lennar Multi-family, and  DTSC colleagues, accusing Lennar of cutting corners, changing testing criteria in order to reduce costs and speed the project. 

Toxic concentrations of the following compounds have been documented on the site.

Arsenic 

Lead 

Petroleum 

Volatile Organic Compounds 

In the early decades of operation, it was common practice to dispose of such waste in unlined pits. 

Technical issues left from the cleanup include possible VOC intrusion into ground floor residences at the future Sherwin Williams development, the arbitrary changing of soil cleanup levels by DTSC and groundwater arsenic concentrations flowing unchecked from the site according to the former project manager.

Thursday's public meeting is being held in response to citizen complaint about the Sherwin Williams site.

Project related documents: https://www.envirostor.dtsc.ca.gov/public/profile_report?global_id=60000189

Sherwin Williams Whistleblower Charges State Agency With Corruption

Sherwin Williams Toxic Cleanup Whistleblower

 to File Complaint With Feds:

  Corruption Charged

State Department of Toxic Substances Control  

Called Out For Incompetence, Worse

City Council Listed as Responsible Party to Protect 

Emeryville Citizens

An employee with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)  turned whistleblower has notified the City of Emeryville that he will be submitting a citizen complaint with the United States Attorney’s office for the Northern District of California, alleging fraudulent practices of a DTSC staff member related to regulatory oversight at the Emeryville Sherwin-Williams toxic brownfields cleanup site.  Speaking as a private citizen, in a June 29th letter to the City of Emeryville and City Council, the former Sherwin-Williams project manager and current DTSC employee, Tom Price said the department has a “corruption problem” related to this toxic site and that the public may ultimately be exposed to toxins at the future residential site as a result.

Toxic soil being removed at the
Sherwin Williams site.

Mr. Price filed complaints with state overseers against DTSC staff starting back in August 2019 regarding what he called bogus sampling plans and inadequate investigation and cleanup of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (VOCs and SVOCs).  At the time, Mr Price charged DTSC officials of working with improper regulatory oversight, hand in glove with the residential developer of the site, Lennar Multi-Family Communities, a charge he is continuing in his impending complaint with the feds.

The impending citizen complaint by Mr. Price, who has protective whistleblower status under Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, include complaints already made against the state-issued professional licenses of five DTSC employees, including an engineer, Jose Salcedo, whom he says “inappropriately approved site development documents” at Sherwin Williams since proper investigation and cleanup were skipped.  Former DTSC Northern California Division Chief of the Site Mitigation and Restoration Program, Mark Malinowski is also named in the citizen complaint for what Mr. Price says amounts to a cajoling of DTSC staff to inappropriately approve development plans with inadequate technical evaluations and attempting to deprive future residents of the honest regulatory oversight services which DTSC normally provides.
Mr. Malinowski has since reported to be retired although the DTSC appears to be using his services in some consultancy capacity.

Regardless of the misconduct of DTSC managers noted by Tom Price up until this point, the former project manager told the City Council it is not too late to properly clean up the site.  He said the City of Emeryville, with its authority over a grading permit which was issued to the developer, should direct DTSC to require the developer to investigate and/or excavate potentially contaminated soils from hundreds of feet of abandoned utility lines on the site that were identified on old maps from the days when Sherwin Williams was engaging in pesticide and paints manufacturing.  Writing as a private citizen in his letter to the City and the Council, Mr. Price recommended bringing a mobile laboratory to the site to complete the investigation with screening of soil gas samples for VOCs and SVOCs in the locations of the abandoned utility lines and former tanks which correspond to the planned living spaces which have not been tested yet.  Mr Price named DTSC senior staff in Southern California including Shahir Haddad and Theodore Johnson, who conducted a review of site documents and identified those deficiencies yet, he noted, they failed to recommend customary investigation and cleanup.

Speaking as a private citizen to potential risks at the Emeryville Sherwin Williams site, former project manager Price told the Tattler,  “According to guidance documents of DTSC and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a vapor intrusion mitigation system such as the one planned for this site should not be considered a substitute for appropriate investigation and remediation. If that is skipped, the long-term protectiveness of the remedy may be compromised. That is unacceptable because these residential buildings will house sensitive receptors including pregnant women and children for decades.”
Mr. Price’s professional experience includes conducting dozens of such field investigations as a field chemist at former industrial sites and service stations across Northern California. It was noted Branch Chief Richard Hume of DTSC's Sacramento office has not responded to Mr. Price's requests for the additional investigation and cleanup of the site which has a history of being one of the most polluted sites under DTSC oversight in the region.

A long-term DTSC employee and Sherwin Williams project manager from May of 2018 to October 2019, Tom Price used the June 29th letter to the City of Emeryville and the Council to inform them that the people of Emeryville, especially the future residents at the Sherwin-Williams site, deserve the honest and professional services of the Department of Toxic Substance Control and they have not received it.  The City and the Council have not yet responded to Mr Price's letter.

After his attempts to provide appropriate regulatory oversight for the project were unsuccessful due to reported interference from Mr. Malinowski, former Northern California Division Chief of the Site Mitigation and Restoration Program at DTSC, Tom Price requested to be transferred off of the Sherwin-Williams cleanup, a request that was accepted.  He remains an employee at the department.

The Sherwin-Williams residential project will have land use restrictions owing to the toxins that will remain on the site.
The apartments being constructed, including many 'family friendly' units, will be ready for occupancy some time in 2022.
A new park adjacent to the residences will be separated from toxic soil by a geotechnical cloth product according to the DTSC cleanup plan.


A 1996 video from the UC Graduate School of Journalism (above) presupposed that underground toxins in Emeryville would be contained in a good faith manner.  They didn't count on the Department of Toxic Substances Control, a government agency tasked with regulating private sector developers and polluters, would be in bed with the very organizations it is supposed to regulate.  It's a classic case of 'regulatory capture'.

Sherwin Williams Developer Violates Emeryville's Construction and Noise Regulations Over the Last Six Months

Councilman John Bauters Steps Away From Dias, Addresses His Colleagues:

'Do Something to Preserve Neighborhood 
Peace and Quiet'

Planning Director has Dropped the Ball

at Sherwin Williams Site

The developer of the Sherwin Williams housing site has been violating Emeryville’s noise and construction laws over the last six months while City Hall has refused enforcement says City Councilman John Bauters who testified as much at Tuesday’s Council meeting.  Despite numerous complaints from neighbors over the last half a year at the Sherwin Williams site, Emeryville’s largest toxic waste cleanup brownfield site, the responsible department, the Planning Department, has done nothing more than offer verbal compliance requests to the multi-billion dollar housing development corporation says Mr Bauters.

Speaking as a private citizen,
John Bauters called on the City Council
to override the Planning Director and
force the Sherwin Williams developer
to comply with the City's construction
and noise regulations.

At the Tuesday regular City Council meeting, Councilman John Bauters stepped off the Council podium and addressed his colleagues as a private citizen, alerting them to a litany of abuses he says Lennar has engaged in as the developer attempts to speed up their work schedule to begin building the 500 apartments the City Council have approved for the site.  Mr Bauters accuses Lennar of violating myriad noise and construction regulations over the last six months including jack hammering after hours, truck queuing in violation of their agreement, illegal Saturday work and incessant construction activity beginning too early.  The toxic clean up phase of the job is still being completed and is late by several months owing to a large amount of toxic soil the developer is removing that was not planned for.

Councilman Bauters, conflicted out of any decision making at the Council level owing to his living too close to the Sherwin Williams site,  says he and his neighbors living near the site have been beseeching City Planning Director Charlie Bryant to enforce the agreement Lennar has made with the City but they have been rebuffed.  The Planning Director has only offered “verbal requests” to Lennar according to Mr Bauters, actions that have no consequence as far as building a case to force compliance.

The lack of accountability at City Hall for resident’s concerns over the last six months at the Sherwin Williams site contributed to Mr Bauters' exasperation, “Is there ever going to be a time when residents are entitled to peace and quiet in our neighborhood and protected with the conditions of approval that you [the City Council] approved?”  he asked.  “Should a developer doing work in the City ever be concerned you will hold them accountable or will they always just get a slap on the wrist for violating local regulations?” he followed.

Owning to what they see as a lack of interest at City Hall in protecting the residents, especially by Planning Director Bryant, Mr Bauters and his neighbors have drawn up a list of two new provisions they see as being necessary to force Lennar into compliance with their development agreement.  The City should amend the Municipal Code to remove a clause that permits executive decisions from the Planning Director in such matters and give it to the City Manager they say.  The neighbors also request the start up time allowed on all Emeryville construction sites be changed from 7 am to 8 am.

The Tattler recently published a Department of Toxic Substance Control whistleblower’s account of Lennar’s actions at the Sherwin site after the former project manager for the cleanup charged his agency and Lennar with conspiring to forgo due diligence in the name of speeding up the cleanup work.  The whistleblower, DTSC employee Tom Price, says the fast and loose work done by Lennar and overseen by DTSC, enabled arsenic laden groundwater to leach past extraction wells for three years and rather than using standard cleanup protocols regarding volatile organic compounds, the developer instead just dug up wholesale, vast amount of soil to truck off the site, an action Mr Price compared with “strip mining”.  It is this improper strip mining that has pushed the schedule back and that’s likely responsible for the developer to now seek to cut the corners that have impacted the neighbors over the last six months. 
The City has been apprised of the violations with regard to the improper arsenic and VOC removal but so far have not yet responded.  If the allegations from Tom Price prove to be sustained, the actions of Lennar would constitute a breech of the Remedial Action Plan made in good faith with the City and theoretically, the developer’s ‘grading permit’ could be revoked says Mr Price.

Tuesday night, the talk was not of arsenic and VOCs but rather the illegal construction activity over the last six months.  Mr Bauters did not receive an answer to his complaints at the Tuesday Council meeting but he did take umbrage with the City's lackadaisical attitude shown to the neighbors, “There is no evidence that staff and the City has taken seriously, our [the neighbors] efforts to have this curbed and to have Lennar fully comply with you, the City Council” he said.

The commentary from Mr Bauters begins at 13:15:

Whistleblower Accusations at Sherwin Williams Toxics Cleanup Site

Project Manager at Sherwin Williams 
Toxics Site:

Substandard Clean Up, Pressure From Developer

A rank and file Project Manager at the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) is charging that developer Lennar Multifamily Communities, a nationwide home builder, attempted to avoid adequate investigation and clean up at the Sherwin Williams-Emeryville brownfield site in cooperation with DTSC management, potentially putting future residents at risk of exposure to poisonous volatile organic compounds.
The DTSC employee, Project Manager Tom Price, who until recently had been providing regulatory oversight for the Sherwin Williams clean up, has filed complaints with the DTSC and other government agencies over fast and loose practices he says that presumably would benefit the developer who seeks to build hundreds of apartments on the site.  Most egregiously, the developer failed to initiate groundwater pumping to prevent arsenic from migrating off the site to downstream properties as required under a 2010 cleanup plan, he says.

Mr Price alleges that soil ‘characterization’ was inadequate in the locations of planned building footprints at the site, and that an executive-level DTSC manager who has since retired, attempted to give the developer a free pass by side stepping standard DTSC protocols, including requiring adequate sampling coverage and representative sampling that would work towards the benefit of the developer.  Unacceptably high levels of ground water arsenic observed in test wells along the western boundary of the property were ignored for years he says, allowing the poison to migrate off the property toward neighboring properties downstream in violation of a 2010 Remedial Action Plan approved by DTSC.

Former Project Manager Price told the Tattler he asked to be re-assigned following his requested customary due diligence and investigation documentation after those requests were ignored.  He indicated he was getting “interference” from DTSC management at the Sherwin Williams clean up and that also contributed to his request for reassignment.

Mr. Price told the Tattler that arsenic concentrations began to exceed allowable limits at the test wells migrating off the site three years ago and that downstream property owners were not notified as would normally occur as part of a public noticing of a proposed cleanup plan amendment which the consultant and developer hoped to avoid.  He subsequently alerted his higher ups that the site was "out of compliance" with the clean up plan.  In January of this year, the consultant for the developer started collecting groundwater samples at the Bay Street Development property to the west of the Sherwin Williams site and in the path of the migrating plume of arsenic, probably as a result of Mr Price’s complaints.  However required pumping has still not occurred for arsenic laced groundwater near Temescal Creek he alleges.
The groundwater arsenic ‘off site’ migration is particularly concerning having come in the face of warnings from the whistleblower, "Despite the ground water exceedances at the property boundary which should have triggered pumping, the developer and their consultant submitted a 'modeling report'.  When the model appeared to fail, they still didn't initiate pumping and as a result, the site has been out of compliance with the clean up plan for three years" he told the Tattler.

The site still lists Tom Price as the
project manager.  Photo taken this week.

The agency has been under a lot of pressure to speed up the final clean up at the site by the developer Lennar who stands to benefit by a fast construction schedule.  Rather than conduct customary investigation, the developer appears to have opted to “strip mine” part of the site and as a result, what was originally planned to be an excavation 1000 square feet in size is now an acre and the site is covered with unplanned soil stockpiles.  Thousands of cubic yards of soil are now being off hauled, far more than what initial plans called for, Mr Price says.

The site, located at 1450 Sherwin Street, is bounded by Horton Street to the east, the former Rifkin Property and Temescal Creek to the north, Sherwin Street to the south and railroad tracks to the west.  A former paint and pesticide manufacturer,  Sherwin Williams maintained operations there from the early 1900s until it was decommissioned in 2007.  The plant manufactured various types of coating products including oil-based paints and latex paints. Other products which were manufactured at the site included extremely toxic lead-arsenate pesticides from approximately the 1920s until the late 1940s.
A series of soil, groundwater and soil vapor investigations by the DTSC were conducted at the site starting in 1988 which showed contaminants of concern including metals, volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, and hydrocarbons.

Contractors were still digging at the site as late as January.

Interim remedial measures, sometimes referred to as the "big dig" by residential neighbors, were initiated in the 1990s including construction of a subsurface containment slurry wall, asphalt cap, and groundwater extraction, and monitoring.  The latest clean up activity, begun in the early fall, has occurred in response to Lennar's construction timeline and has been centered on the south side of the property, previously under a concrete slab and not cleaned up during the big dig.  A remedial action plan was implemented by 2011 which involved excavation of 100,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil for off-site disposal and placing a Land Use Covenant on the property to restrict future usages.

The breakdown in normal clean up protocols served as an impetus for the complaints with the DTSC and other government agencies, starting in September.   “As a private citizen (separate from my job at DTSC), I filed complaints all the way up to the governor’s office against the developer Lennar Multifamily Communities. In my opinion, they endeavored to skip customary due diligence and investigation for hazardous substances for [Sherwin Williams], a housing development at former industrial plant.” Mr Price said.   After his replacement at the Sherwin Williams site Project Manager Bud Duke took over, Tom reports that citizen complaints that he filed, appear to have resulted in considerably more cleanup than the developer originally proposed.

The City of Emeryville has not been included in the list of government agencies Tom Price has filed complaints with but since the City issued a revocable 'grading permit' for the site to Lennar, the City theoretically has leverage to force compliance with the remedial action plan it is a signatory to.  The City, the former Sherwin Williams cleanup manger said, has interest in a proper clean up of the site for the protection of future residents.

A Lennar sign on the property line fence overstates
the condition at the Sherwin Williams clean up site.

Strange Looking Pack of Dogs on Horton Street

People reported a strange looking pack of dogs on the Sherwin Williams site yesterday.

The Sherwin Williams Site on Horton Street

Residents may want to keep small dogs and children indoors until a more detailed report is available.

Poetry As Propaganda

Emeryville Stops Artists From Speaking Truth To Power  

Artists speaking truth to corporate power in Emeryville?  Not so fast says City Hall and its publicly funded Poet Laureate.

Take the temporary plywood pedestrian protection wall recently removed from along the Horton Street sidewalk north of 45th Street at the former Sherwin Williams paint manufacturing site: there the city of Emeryville facilitated the paint corporation in a poetic advertising campaign in the form of an open poetry contest, even while helping to quash artists in town that might have questioned that corporate power. 

The Emeryville plant from the lead and
arsenic dumping go-go years.

Controversy arose around the contest, when Japanese haiku style poetry, critical of Sherwin Williams and its history of illegal toxic waste dumping at the site, was submitted for the wall from at least four citizens.  The paid judges, Ms Janell Moon and Ms Mara Feeney, deemed any poetry critical of the corporation out of bounds and those poems were summarily rejected from consideration. 

  

The plywood wall, removed last week, was erected some months ago at the start of a government mandated toxic waste clean-up project by Sherwin Williams after decades of their illegally dumping lead and arsenic in the soil at the site.  The seemingly innocuous poetry contest meant to adorn the wall with citizen's poetry incorporating and celebrating the proprietary names for Sherwin Williams paint colors was consequently sponsored by the city of Emeryville.  The contest, from Sherwin William's perspective, helped reinforce public good will directed to the paint company and helped to offset the negative public relations brought on by its toxic waste dumping.

In a less cynical world, Sherwin Williams 
paint colors would include:
Arsenic Silver & Lead Silver

The judges were compensated for their work in censoring the poems; Janell Moon, selected as Emeryville's first Poet Laureate last year, received a taxpayer funded stipend for her duties and Mara Feeney is a private corporate public relations consultant retained by Sherwin Williams for the Emeryville toxic waste clean-up.

On a side note, the city of Emeryville, upon bestowing Janell Moon the Poet Laureate title noted she is "Emeryville-based" even though Ms Moon's own website indicates the poet is "San Francisco-based".  The eligibility requirements for the position mandate "the selected poet lives or works in Emeryville".  

The city's contest announcement is here.
The Secret News story on the clean-up is here and here.
The city's announcement declaring Janell Moon the first Poet Laureate is here.

New, Higher Fence Erected At Sherwin Williams Clean-Up Site

Toxic Clean-up Site: No Transparency, Literally

The Press Is Peering Over Our Fence?  Build It Taller!

Opinion

Sherwin Williams Corporation has a little problem.  It seems the press thinks it can take pictures of their toxic soil clean-up with its heavy machinery digging and clouds of dust rising up.  Sherwin Williams erected perimeter security fences of opaque fabric over metal mesh and plywood walls to keep prying eyes out of their sensitive operations, but they didn't build the fences tall enough.

After The Secret News broke the story of the clouds of toxic lead and arsenic dust with its attendant and damning photograph, Sherwin Williams convened a meeting with its contractor; something had to be done...not about the clouds of dust wafting off project site and into the residential neighborhood.  No, something had to be done about people seeing what they are doing behind the fence.  So the word came down from the top; build a higher fence.

The Tattler inquired after they increased the height of their fence; why is the fence now taller where The Secret News photographer was documenting the dig site?  Three different answers came from the developer and Sherwin Williams itself.  First they said it was an "attractive nuisance", then they said it was needed since they were digging farther away from the eastern perimeter and something about the dust flying higher due to something or other.  Finally they settled on a plausible answer; they said they were simply using the higher fence as a better attachment anchor point for the dust controlling water misters they're using...interesting, but they never actually attached the misters to the new higher fence.  Weeks later, they still haven't.

After handing us the corporate version of three card monte, what we're left with is the real answer, likely at the onset, undeniable now: they simply don't want the press to see how the digging operations are raising large clouds of toxic dust, something they expressly told the neighboring residents in preliminary meetings, would not happen.  This combined with a reluctance to test the large quantities of dust landing on cars and roofs, etc in the neighborhood causes us pause; we don't think Sherwin Williams is up to this toxic clean-up task.  The idea that a compliant local government and a for profit corporation tasked with properly handling massive quantities of highly toxic soil immediately adjacent to a neighborhood with hundreds of people and the idea that this corporation, obviously very fearful of transparency, is abhorrent.

Send In The Haiku

After decades of illegal dumping of highly toxic substances in the soil, Sherwin Williams has dressed up their Horton Street plywood wall with haiku poetry solicited from the residents, celebrating Sherwin Williams paint products; an act that would cause some to question the role of the artist in speaking truth to (corporate) power.  But the haiku here hides a bigger truth; the truth of what Sherwin Williams is doing behind that wall, now that it's been sealed off from public view.

Why, we ask, didn't Sherwin Williams provide viewing windows in the sidewalk perimeter plywood fence so neighbors could directly see the toxic soil remediation for themselves?  The answer came from their corporate public relations subcontractor Mara Feeney; "It wouldn't be appropriate for children to spend extended periods of time (viewing through windows) at the project perimeter" she said.

And there you have it; Sherwin Williams says that off the clean-up site and in the adjacent neighborhood, it's inappropriate for children to hang out.  Why, we ask Sherwin Williams, is that inappropriate?

Cynical Manipulation?

Let's Have Some More Cynical Manipulation From Councilman Bukowski

If this is cynical manipulation, please Mr Bukowski, cynically manipulate us some more.

Opinion

Councilman Ken Bukowski has taken a lot of fire from his city council colleagues of late.  The City Attorney initiative plebiscite and other populist legislation he has recently championed has drawn charges that he is engaging in "cynical manipulation" meant only to help in his re-election bid.

The September 7th council vote on the Sherwin Williams toxic site clean-up is an example of this cynical manipulation; council member Bukowski was the sole vote against allowing Sherwin Williams to extend their hours of operation at their toxic clean-up site on Horton Street.

If not the Earth, at least

cover Emeryville in 

lead and arsenic.

After decades of dumping toxic materials including lead and arsenic, even after environmental regulations outlawed the practice, Sherwin Williams is being forced to dig up and haul away the contaminated soil. But the clean-up work has fallen behind schedule and they asked the council to approve weekend and weekday evening clean-up work; an extension of their original agreement.  The loud and heavy equipment has doused the neighborhood with dust and Sherwin Williams has rebuffed neighbors requests for toxin testing of the dust.

Several neighbors have noted the extended hours proposed by Sherwin Williams would be after school hours and neighborhood children would be exposed to the airborne dust.

The request by Sherwin Williams was especially egregious since the reason given for the extension turned out to ultimately be money savings for the billion dollar corporation.  Company representatives kept saying it would be "hard" and "difficult" to conduct the clean-up in the coming rainy season.  When pressed, the company would not explain what hard and difficult mean, leaving profit maximizing as the final and obvious but unspoken motive.

It was only Mr Bukowski that held firm that the original agreement with Sherwin Williams should be honored.  The other four council members caved and voted to grant Sherwin Williams extended hours.  The only reason the request was defeated was because two competing hours extension proposals by two groups of two council members cancelled each other out leaving the original agreement standing and Mr Bukowski as the victor.

Cynical:  He's doing things the voters want, 
hoping to get re-elected.  
Feel used?

We recognize that this sort of populism is new for Mr Bukowski and we have no allusions about his pre-election pro-resident pivot.   But we are saddened that a council member that breaks with the pack and represents the residents' interests over corporate interests is rebuked by his colleagues and chastised as a cynical manipulator just seeking to increase his re-election odds. Instead of cynical manipulating, we have another word for this kind of politics...it's called leadership, re-election motives notwithstanding.  What Mr Bukowski did on September 7th is what we sent him to City Hall to do and we don't care if he is motivated by a desire to get re-elected.  The other council members should be so cynical.

Residents Cry Foul At Sherwin Williams Clean-up

Re-printed from the E'ville Eye:
September 7, 2011

Sherwin Williams’ Request for Extended Work Hours Denied
A resolution to the noise waiver to extend work hours for the Envirocon clean-up of the Sherwin Williams factory was defeated at this evening’s city council meeting by a 2-3 vote.

An Envirocon representative rationalized that the extension was necessary to make up for a two-month delay in coordinating use of the railway for carting away toxic soil. The extension was needed to avoid the project possibly carrying over beyond the anticipated December 1st deadline and into winter where it could be further delayed by weather. The net benefit of the extended schedule was estimated to be approximately two weeks. 

Mayor Nora Davis reluctantly supported the measure citing that everyone just wanted the project to be over with and the opposition to it was a small but vocal minority or residences. A substitute motion was proposed by Council memberRuth Atkin to allow for weekend use of the less disruptive railway portion but not extend the weekday trucking operation along Halleck St. A compromise could not be reached on this though and the measure was altogether defeated.
Environmental concerns were raised about the clean-up by one resident of the adjacent artist co-op, specifically the accumulation of dust on nearby vehicles and the toxicity levels of it. Our friends at the Secret News have been monitoring the situation closely and more can be read about their concerns here.

Additional concerns were raised by one citizen about the permanent loss of archaeological finds from the clean-up and that the land intersected the historically important shellmound indian burial site. No concrete “next-steps” for testing this dust or preserving fossils were established. Video of the City council meeting should be available for viewing shortly on the City of Emeryville website. More info about the clean up can be found on the DTSC website »

Secret News Reports Toxic Site Recalcitrance

Re-printed from the Secret News:

Is It Safe?

August 27, 2011

By Tracy Schroth

Sherwin Williams asks for extended work hours (evenings, Saturdays), while refusing repeated requests for testing

Sherwin Williams has spent the past 45 days cleaning up the mess it made during its heyday decades ago, when it was busy “covering the world.” And it’s quite a mess. More than 8 acres of land at the corner of Sherwin and Horton streets in Emeryville is contaminated with arsenic, lead, and solvents like benzene.
While the clean-up –- reportedly just one-third of the way done –- is good news, the bad news is the clean-up is generating dust – a dust that residents say is sticking to their cars, blowing into their open apartment windows, and leaving a layer of grit on their morning newspapers...
                                                                                                            (MORE click here to continue)