Tag: Proposition P

The injustice continues with Ahimsa Porter Sumchai’s ongoing exposure of the relentless suffering and death attacking the residents of Bayview Hunters Point – the result of the U.S. Navy’s poisoning the land with no cleanup or accountability, handing it off to profiteering developers, years of government and corporate corruption and greed, and crimes against humanity, culminating in three federal Superfund sites now confirmed.

The Hunters Point Shipyard remediation and development has spawned an environmental justice “engine” that drives media and government transparency. The SF Bay View newspaper remains the source of disinfecting sunlight and the science of community protection.

Once upon a time … in a reality far, far away … Amy D.C. Brownell, PE, a licensed professional engineer with the Environmental Division of the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), accepted the mandate to protect human health and the environment as a permanent regulator seated on the Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) of the Hunters Point Shipyard, a federal Superfund site. RABs are democratically elected bodies created by Congress to empower community stakeholders with the opportunity to direct the cleanup and reuse of former military installations.

San Francisco is home to the former Hunters Point Shipyard. Once called “the world’s greatest shipping yard,” it was declared a federal Superfund site in 1989, defined by USEPA as “one of the nation’s most contaminated lands.” Contaminated by radioactive and toxic waste from decades of military and industrial use, including toxic metals, PCBs, radionuclides, pesticides and volatile organic compounds. Numerous studies document Southeast SF is burdened by adverse health impacts due to cumulative exposures to toxic air pollution, carcinogens and industrial waste.

Who will fight for the people? Who will stand with them on tough issues? Nyese Joshua. Why is Bayview Hunters Point at the center of my focus? Because it is the political boiling point; Bayview, as they say, is San Francisco’s future.

The San Francisco Labor Council, working hand in glove with Lennar, expects Lennar to give the jobs building thousands of condos to its construction trade union members – mostly white men who don’t live in San Francisco. To appear concerned about the 40-50 percent joblessness in Hunters Point, they want $2.3 million in federal stimulus money to build a training center.

The exact moment in time has arrived to pull down the veil of the corrupt, ethics depleted political status quo being perpetuated at City Hall via Supervisor Sophenia Maxwell, who represents District 10. Her controllers do not want to see her moved from that seat one second before January 2011. They have a well established relationship and flow with Ms. Maxwell right where she is. Putting the sledge hammer of RECALL to that coup will speak volumes to that power structure.

Sen. Mark Leno's Senate Bill 792 would give clean parkland at Candlestick Point to Lennar and replace it with toxic land. Lennar, the "toxic dust developer," plans to build 10,000 luxury condos at the Hunters Point Shipyard. This toxic trade bill is now in the California Assembly, so calls opposing SB 792 should be made immediately to Fiona Ma, (916) 319-2012, and Tom Ammiano, (916) 319-2013.

In an email to the San Francisco Bay View, Laurence Pelosi verified that he was a Lennar senior executive in March of 2004 at the time San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, his cousin for whom he had served as mayoral campaign treasurer, had signed the Hunters Point Shipyard Conveyance Agreement at the behest of Laurence's Aunt Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

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.

It would be a liability to accelerate the transfer of a federal Superfund site from the National Priority List with the data gaps that exist in the characterization of this property. The city admits it cannot clean up the Shipyard’s radiation-contaminated sites, which comprise the bulk of Parcels D and E. Parcel F, the Shipyard’s underwater region, has not been adequately studied.

On Friday, Sept. 21, 2007, Mayor Gavin Newsom claimed “the CDC and the California Department of Public Health agree with the San Francisco Department of Public Health that there was no significant health risk created by the grading activities at the shipyard.”

Nevertheless, recent news articles have discussed plans to speed up the pace of the cleanup and possible use of the Shipyard to house a new 49ers stadium.

“There’s asbestos everywhere on the base …” – Wayne Lee, inspector, Bay Area Air Quality Management District

Under the dirty development policies advanced by the Newsom administration, Parcel D can be surreptitiously transferred to the City and County of San Francisco for industrial development next year and housing built on radiation-contaminated soils.