Harrison Field and Skate Park
L A Wood, Berkeley Daily Planet, November 29, 2000

Last week, while breaking ground for the new city skateboard park in West Berkeley, construction crews struck contaminated groundwater and the site was shut down. Who would have thought that the Hollywood movie "Erin Brockovich" would be played out in Berkeley! Yet, lab tests have revealed the presence of hexavalent chromium (chromium-6) in the groundwater samples and the suspected source, a large toxic plume upgradient from the recreational site. It now appears that the city, which intended to buy a kid's soccer field, may have also have purchased, the long-term management of the area's chromium-6 plume.

It doesn't take a hydrologist or toxicologist to understand this blunder, just a few facts and a little common sense. The ABCs of real estate say that before a property known to be contaminated is purchased, that either the buyer or the seller requests a Phase One technical site review which, you should know, also addresses off-site concerns. Such a study reduces the likelihood of being blindsided and stuck with the cleanup costs, such as those associated with the "newly" discovered toxic plume. In fact, no lending institution would commit to any industrial land purchase without a completed Phase I site study.

As you might guess, the bank for Harrison Fields was the city itself. In the first week alone, remediation costs at the site have drained city coffers of nearly $200,000! Somehow, neither the UC Regents or the city of Berkeley asked for a Phase One report. Certainly, one of the city's excuses will be that it simply attempted to wear too many hats, i.e., owner, environmental regulator, developer, contractor, and bank. With few checks and balances, the Harrison Project was allowed to become more than a single poor choice, but a series of mistakes spanning back to the re-zoning of the site two years ago.

If the zoning process had been conducted responsibly in 1998, a complete Phase One would have been performed at Harrison, if only to legally affirm the assumptions put forth in the rezoning of the site for recreational use. Instead the city, playing the anxious buyer, rushed in without a Phase One study and then raced through all the city processes with little more in hand than the political directive to build the ball park in the industrial sector.

Because of the extremely shallow groundwater levels and Codornices Creek bordering the soccer fields, it was necessary to install a dewatering system across the entire site, and especially at the skate park because of its structure. These drainage activities will draw the plume toward and into the Harrison site.

Certainly these discharge points will need to be actively monitored. Moreover, the disruptions caused by the skatepark's construction will accelerate this process, as the structure itself becomes a conduit to the interior of the property. The upward migration of chromium-6 has now become a real concern.

Undoubtedly, a proper site investigation would have prevented any below ground construction at Harrison Fields. Now the city will have to fill all the construction pits of the skate park and look to an above-ground design, if it's still convinced this is the best place for our children.

It never seems to fail that when a community like Berkeley discovers a serious groundwater problem, the Regional Water Quality Control Board says, "We make polluters pay!" It's time tell the truth. Most often, where the pollution is owned by a small company, any attempt to require a cleanup usually results in bankruptcy.

Therefore, the water board rarely makes any real demands for cleanup, as this long-standing chromium-6 groundwater plume clearly demonstrates. There has been no attempt to actively remediate this toxic plume. Instead, it has been allowed to spread off-site for years.

It's unlikely the city will recover anything from the UC Regents for failure to disclose off-site chromium-6 since the city government was so thoroughly notified, before, during and after the purchase, of the inadequate soil and groundwater review. This is government at its worst! An audit and investigation of the Harrison Fields Project and its rezoning should he demanded.