Joint Berkeley Community & Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) Meeting
Pacific Steel Castings Health Risk Assessment
West Berkeley Senior Center, January 11, 2008
Source: West Berkeley Community meeting 2008 TRT 190 min. (Berkeley Citzen Video Arhcive)
According to Mark Cherniak, an independent international health expert, the levels of nickel and manganese found in the samples taken near the West Berkeley steel foundry were hundreds of times higher than considered safe by the World Health Organization.
Community members were concerned that the Pacific Steel’s own health risk report identified children at the Duck’s Nest preschool—located a block away—as being most susceptible to risks from airborne hazardous material and subsequent cancer risks.
The health assessment was mandated by the air district under a state air pollution control law. The report, conducted by Environ in Emeryville, a paid consultant for Pacific Steel, showed that cancer risks and non-cancer hazards for those exposed to facility emissions and for those living, attending school or day care near the facility do not pose a "significant risk."
Speakers included: Brian Bateman, BAAQMD
Scott Lutz, BAAQMD
Douglas Daugherty, Environ
Ken Kloc, Environmental Law and Justice Clinic, Golden Gate University
Bradley Angel, Greenaction
Berkeley community members: Andrew Kelpern, L A Wood, Peter Guererro, Janice Schroeder, Amy Dunn, Martha Westland, Chris Kroll, Toni Stein
Produced by Berkeley Citizen
<ALSO SEE> Cancer Risk in West Berkeley
L A Wood, Berkeley Daily Planet, January 29, 2008
Note: The Bay Area Air Quality Management District owes our West Berkeley community more than a mere apology for over twenty-five years of abandoning their legally-mandated responsibility for a fair regulatory process, one that should have been based on an honest application of permitting, engineering and air science, and not one of managerial discretion or political expediency.
Most importantly, they need to acknowledge the harm that the air district and its handful of self-serving managers who callously impacted the health and wellbeing of more than one generation of downwind residents, including our children. This video is but one small reminder of BAAQMD’s shameful legacy in Berkeley.
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