Tag: Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai

Mama Mesha embodies the universal balance, the love circle, of that which you give, you get.

The once-pristine Yosemite Slough is not lost and justly not forgotten as Yvonne Fong of the EPA and community involvement coordinator Jackie Lane announce plans to advance remediation and restoration.

Whereas most light bulbs dim with age, the Critical Race Theory bulb burns brighter every day as we move boldly forward in exploration of the truth about the human family.

Absence a response by the local health officer or designee moves Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai to declare a Local Health Emergency under Section 101080 of the California Health and Safety Code at Naval Stations Hunters Point and Treasure Island.

Nine months ago, a panel of UC experts headed by Dr. John Balmes released a review of radiation retesting procedures for Hunters Point Shipyard Parcel A, finding them “appropriate.” At a Jan. 28 public meeting, Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai challenged Dr. Balmes’ independence, recalling he was paid by developer Lennar for reassuring the community of the safety of the dust generated by developer Lennar’s grading in 2006-2007.

The ongoing reveal of the life-threatening contaminants plaguing the residents of the Bayview Hunters Point community was further enhanced by a recent virtual tour by Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai and Dr. Mark Alexander imparting first-hand knowledge to attendees, including first-year UCSF medical students. Information focused on the toxic elements adding weight to the body burden as revealed by the biomonitoring program testing being done within the community.

“Our power comes from the fact that we create the wealth. Wealth is power; we have the ability to withhold that power.” – Boots Riley, filmmaker and activist, Juneteenth 2020 ILWU shutdown Port of Oakland

Remember the many years Marie Harrison owned the back page of the Bay View? She defined what “speaking truth to power” means. With headlines like “We’ve always survived your whip and your noose” and observations like “Voter education isn’t just somebody educating the voters; it’s the voters educating the people they elect,” as we carry on without her, we must infuse every fight with her courage.

On Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018, the second San Francisco Board of Supervisors audit hearing will be held on racial discrimination in City jobs. The public is urged to attend the press conference on the City Hall steps at 12:30 and the hearing in the Board Chambers beginning at 3 p.m. The first hearing on Sept. 19, 2018, brought literally hundreds of workers to the Supervisors’ Chambers and the overflow room. Dozens testified that they had faced numerous instances of racist discrimination and retaliation and even physical assaults by city managers.

We caught the vision of the Shipyard, asked our Lennar sales rep. some pointed questions about the safety of this former Superfund site and were told it had been “thoroughly cleaned up, inspected and certified by the EPA as safe to build homes on.” As they often stated, the land that had been transferred for development had previously housed “officers’ quarters,” so none of the radiological testing being done on other parts of the Shipyard had happened there. I mean, of course they wouldn’t build if it wasn’t clean … right?

As a shockwave of disclosures expands the Hunters Point scandal, more startling historical and scientific facts were revealed by Daniel Hirsch, former University of California Santa Cruz Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy director on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018. A clutch of powerful federal, state and local politicians has been involved for decades in the remediation and redevelopment of Superfund sites Hunters Point and Treasure Island. 

The U.S. Navy had its annual dog and pony show at the Treasure Island Restoration Advisory Board meeting on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. The previous meeting included a Tetra Tech representative and a loud confrontation, but this time Tetra Tech representatives were not on the panel since there are now two Tetra Tech managers in federal prison for falsifying the cleanup records at Hunters Point and an ongoing grand jury investigation with likely more sealed indictments.

Over $1 billion has been spent by the federal government since 2004 to clean up and remediate one of the most highly toxic and radioactive sites in the U.S., the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. This Superfund site was home for decades, 1946-1969, to the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, and large Navy warships were towed there from the Pacific, where they had been placed close to nuclear tests.

The SF Bay View newspaper applauds the strength and integrity of state and federal regulators who have taken the ultimate stand in protecting the health and future of the Bayview Hunters Point community. In so doing you have joined the “Forest of Mighty Oaks” planted in Bayview Hunters Point who have stood in open defiance against the tyranny and onslaught of political corruption and for-profit development operating in San Francisco. But we hate to say we told you so ... for over 15 years!

A cleanup worker at the decommissioned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in southeast San Francisco is facing a rare life threatening cancer he believes is caused by his exposure to known toxins at the federal Superfund site. Diagnosed with a Peripheral T Cell Lymphoma, an aggressive high grade lymphoid malignancy with a five year survival rate of 32 percent, the worker has retained the high powered New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg.

“Violence is now so pervasive it can no longer be usefully viewed as only a problem of desperate acts by individual offenders.” – C. Everett Koop, M.D., The Surgeon General’s Workshop on Violence and Public Health, 1985

Proposition H offers an opportunity for San Francisco to obtain up to 51 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2017 and 100 percent by 2040. The storm of anti-Prop H mailers and television ads bombarding us is funded by PG&E from the money you pay for your steadily rising electric bills.