Problems with toxic cleanup method aired
Will Harper, Berkeley Voice, September 14, 1995

Problems with toxic cleanup method aired: City officials, gas station neighbors frown on aeration

When Leslie Marks bought her west Berkeley home in 1992, she never suspected the closed gas station next door posed a danger to her. The person who sold her the house neglected to tell her there had been underground gas leaks at the site, she said.

Earlier this summer a toxic cleanup of the site at 2700 San Pablo Ave. started after the go-ahead was given by various local, regional and state agencies.

The remediation a plan used a controversial and relatively inexpensive cleanup method known as aeration in which polluted soil is unearthed and essentially aired out over a period of time.

Marks said the fumes have caused her an ongoing sore throat, nausea, burning eyes and severe headaches. The fumes have also made her house is uninhabitable, she said. Marks, an artist, now either stays in her studio down the street or with friends.

I'm furious," she said while standing across the street from the site and her home. "I've got a house I've got to continue to pay for and I can't use it."

Marks said she was notified that the cleanup was going to take place, but she was not told what method was going to be used. A city toxics official acknowledged an odor definitely emanated from the site, although that did not mean the site posed a health hazard. A sign posted by the city said measured air emissions did not reveal the presence of benzene -- a known cancer-causing agent often associated with contaminated gas sites. The posted sign said the air being emitted from the site posed no health risk to the surrounding community.

Still, environmentalists question the wisdom of using aeration to clean up sites in urban areas near homes and businesses. It's a method better suited for rural or industrial areas, environmentalist say.

According to the city toxics program there are 40-50 underground storage tank sites in Berkeley, many of which may be contaminated. If the owners of those sites all wanted to clean up their property using aeration there's little the city could do now to stop them.

The Community Environmental Advisory Commission last month unanimously passed a resolution strengthening the city's policy on the use of aeration. The commission's recommendation goes to the City Council for final approval some time in the next month.

Nabil Al-Hadithy, staff secretary to the commission, said the commission wants to establish a city policy that would declare aeration an unacceptable method of toxic cleanup or remediation. The commission's recommendation would also require property owners to protect soil stockpiles from water and wind and remove those stockpiles from the polluted site within 30 days.

Currently, Al-Hadithy said, the city's policy is to advise property owners not to aerate on site, But the city doesn't have the legal authority to prevent owners from aerating if they insist on doing so. That's because the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the regional body that regulates local air standards, permits aeration and doesn't allow cities to ban it. What the air district does allow the city to do, Al-Hadithy said, is strengthen restrictions. "Consequently, we have to be creative and restrict aeration without banning it," he said.

"I'm longing for something stronger, but it's the best we could do under the circumstances," said Jami Caseber, the vice-chair of the commission. The appeal of aeration is that it is a relatively cheap remediation method.

A city policy at simply restricts aeration still can deter its use, Al-Hadithy said. Property owners will know from the beginning that the city doesn't want them to aerate. If owners insist on using aeration they must seek the permission of three regional and state boards.

In the case of 2700 San Pablo, Al-Hadithy said, a city policy opposed to aeration may have prevented its use on the site. Such a policy may have been more persuasive to the to State Water Resources Control Board -- which controls the purse-strings to the state's underground storage tank cleanup program paid for by gas taxes -- than an individual city toxics inspector advising against it, Al-Hadithy said.

There are some air quality management districts in the state that don't permit the aeration of polluted soils, Al-Hadithy said. The Bay Area air district only restricts aeration if a property is very large or extremely contaminated. Relatively small properties like gas stations generally qualify to aerate on site, Al-Hadithy said. I'd be happy if other cities in the Bay Area follow our lead, not only because it's good policy but also because it's bad policy to take pollution from one medium (soil) and transfer it to another on.

Caseber said he'd like the city to lobby the regional air board to ban aeration. Al-Hadithy said the city already takes pro-active measures to protect the community from adverse health impacts by requiring preliminary health risk assessments and air monitoring of polluted sites. If aeration of petroleum hydrocarbons, like those found at gas stations, wore to adversely affect the health of nearby residents, the city can shut down a site. In most cases, however, Al-Hadithy said such aeration does not have any measurable health impact.

Still, there are less measurable "nuisances" effects which go along with aeration such as the smell of gas having a psychological or sensitizing impact on surrounding residents. Such effects can't be measured by a toxicologist, Al-Hadithy said, but are valid nevertheless.

Local environmentalist and neighborhood activist L A Wood said while the city's efforts to further restrict aeration was a step in the right direction, still more can be done. Wood suggested the city could offer incentives to use safer alternative remediation methods, such as bio-venting, that don't send volatile compounds into the air. Wood added that the city should require more complete public notification so nearby residents know what's happening when a toxic site is being cleaned. For example, Wood said, residents near the site at 2700 San Pablo received only a vague notice that didn't warn of any potential health effects.

"Public notification of remediation activities is delivered like a pizza flyer, stuffed in residents' doorways. A more formal notification process should be a requirement for every toxic site in Berkeley," Wood said. "All those people involved in remediation have a right to know the types of contaminants, work schedules, the actual health effects these contaminates have. People should be warned so they can avoid areas that are being remediated or aerated," he said.

Al-Hadithy said if preliminary health risk assessment required by the city showed a potential health hazard then the city would not allow aeration to take place on the site.