Changes Are More Than Red Tape
L A Wood, Berkeley Voice, March 13, 1997

Thank you for your coverage of the downgrading of Berkeley's Toxics Management Division ("Toxics group fears red tape," Feb. 20). However, there is more to this story than just administrative red tape. Mr. Kamlarz, who has been with the city for 22 years surely knows this fact. Yet, he begs the question, "Why would the city want to fail at this (toxics management)?"

There are many both inside and outside Berkeley who have expressed the desire for less rigorous enforcement of our city's environmental standards. The list includes the federal and California EPA, the regional and state water resource boards, the Department of Energy, the City of Emeryville, all the oil companies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, most developers and many others. Even Berkeley's Chamber of Commerce publicly expressed this idea at the city council's groundwater debates last year.

The council defied all of the above parties by passing a unanimous vote against "contamination zone" designation. At the council's behest, the Toxics Management Division (TMD) sent correspondences to nearly everyone from President Clinton to the City of Emeryville expressing the City of Berkeley's dismay over the current efforts to deregulate groundwater and other environmental protections.

Most of the responses received by the city have asked, "why can't Berkeley just go along?" It's not surprising that our pro-environment stance and its messenger, the TMD, have stirred the wrath of both industry and regulators. Now these outside influences have put a lock on both the TMD and our city government.

The idea for a city-managed toxics program came in the mid 1980s. This was the beginning of the environmental cleanup called for by Congress because of the numerous "love canals" across the country. In Berkeley, our toxics awareness came as a response to the community outcry over mixed use residential developments in the west and south industrial sectors of the city. The discussions, the planning process, and the hearings that followed gave birth to the city's environmental commission, a state-certified TMD, and the West Berkeley Area Plan which calls for more environmental cleanup, not less.

In the past, when most other cities were being regulated through a county toxics program, Berkeley undertook its own management. In fact, the TMD has come to be regarded as a program model within the state. Some other cities in the state have now been offered the responsibility for their own toxics management. However, with the current wave of environmental deregulation, few will do more than collect permit fees.

Last month, Berkeley received authorization to continue its toxics management, but under a new state designation as a Certified Uniform Program Agency, or CUPA. The CUPA designation in California forces municipalities to adopt new state standards, which in Berkeley's case are far lower than either our city council, or community wants.

The changes in Berkeley's TMD are much more than red tape and revenue enhancement. It is about the billions of dollars in environmental cleanup costs and the accountability of polluters which are being held in the balance. Tragically, they are being balanced against our community's health and environmental sustainability