Tag: asbestos

Think of Treasure Island as an iridescent green glowing ghost ship whose prow divides the blue waves as it navigates San Francisco Bay waters gliding northwest under the Golden Gate Bridge. On the tidy front lawn of your market rate or low income Site 12 rental brought to you courtesy of The John Stewart Co., it is as if you are standing at the bow of the radioactive vessel as it carries its toxic contents ever forward into a stunning red-gold sunset.

The fight by the people of San Francisco to hold the San Francisco Department of Public Health and mega-developer Lennar accountable for clean air and the health of Hunters Point residents endured another round Thursday, June 23, at City Hall. The verdict? Jury still out.

The decades-long fight by Bayview Hunters Point for environmental justice goes to court Thursday on whether the City of San Francisco and Lennar failed to disclose the potential health impacts of development on the toxic Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund site. Meanwhile, emails just obtained through a public records request reveal a coverup conspiracy by the SF Health Department and EPA with Lennar. Pack the courtroom Thursday, March 24, 9:30 a.m., at 400 McAllister St., Room 613, San Francisco.

Georgia State Prison, identified by its dwellers as “The Bottom” (i.e., The End), due to its life-negating atmosphere, is once again living up to its sadistic name by fostering and maintaining an atmosphere that produces death.

A survey sent in April of 2008 by the Union of Concerned Scientists to 5,419 EPA scientists reports that 900 scientists say the White House watered down documents regarding climate change and inserted industry language into EPA power plant regulations and that scientific advisory panel conclusions about toxic chemicals went unheeded.

In 2001 I founded the Radiological Subcommittee of the Hunters Point Shipyard. I became obsessed by the potential for one of the worst toxic environmental impacts to the human cell being realized with this development project on a federal Superfund site: Small radioactive particles called radionuclides becoming airborne on dust and breathed into the lungs and circulatory system of children.

Davey D interviews Minister Christopher Muhammad, leader of the Stop Lennar Action Movement, on Hard Knock Radio about Lennar's latest mischief-making. Tell the SF Board of Supervisors to tell Lennar 'No guns at community meetings' Tuesday, April 20, 2 p.m., SF City Hall Room 250. Pack the Supervisors' Chambers as they vote on a resolution condemning Lennar.

The dirt is in the details. Dirty early transfer, dirty development, dirty politics is not the answer to any of the conditions that plague Bayview Hunters Point or San Francisco as a whole. Now it is our call, our time to get involved to say no to the dirty onslaught upon BVHP and San Francisco.

In its comments on the Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard Environmental Impact Report, POWER focused on the carcinogens and radiological contamination at the Shipyard; the dangers of liquefaction; climate change and sea level rise; transportation impacts from the proposed development; the connection of the development to the existing community; and the preservation of historic Ohlone sites.

Tuesday, Jan. 5, at 4 p.m. in City Hall Room 416 is the FINAL hearing on the Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard EIR, a very callous, negligent and dangerous document that identifies numerous life threatening and potentially disastrous impacts to human health and the environment - most dangerous of all the potential construction activities at a federal Superfund site listed as one of the most toxic properties in the nation!

Lennar's LEN stocks had sunk to $3.60 per share by mid-November despite restructuring and partnership with the financial firm CB Richard Ellis, headed by Richard Blum, a UC regent and husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a principle sponsor of the Lennar-funded Proposition G.

“It is ‘normal,’ he said, for a child to have nosebleeds and asthma.”

For over a year, Lennar polluted the Bayview with dangerous levels of asbestos particulate, churning poisonous dust clouds over community homes, schools and churches.

Prop G is not about development – it’s about land banking for the future. Lennar will sell off its affordable housing obligations to nonprofits, then hold out to maximize its return.

Short term exposures to particles can, within hours or days, aggravate lung disease, cause asthma attacks and acute bronchitis and increase susceptibility to respiratory infections.

Due to the toxicity of the land, Lennar is able to acquire land in poor areas, such as the Bayview, for next to nothing. Lennar then develops the area, building market value homes that current residents cannot afford, driving them out of their neighborhood.

“What Mayor Newsom, Lennar and its surrogates wanted me to do was leave the community exposed, and they hoped that this whole issue of their poisoning our babies and community would go with me.”

Efforts to “dirty transfer” uncleaned shipyard parcels as proposed in the conceptual plan and the June 2008 ballot measure represent a direct violation of a city ordinance.

Despite Lennar’s claims that grading was completed in September in 2007, community air monitors continue to document elevations in asbestos levels.

Now that we know how that negligence has endangered an upscale white neighborhood in Florida, will anyone in Hunters Point stand up in Lennar’s defense?