San Francisco's Trash
Just south of the (city) border
The first big toxic pollution in the Bay was 3,500 tons of mercury used in gold mining from 1853 to 1884. By 1900 the Bay reeked of untreated human and factory waste. Oil slicks were everywhere and soiled shorelines were common. From Hunter's Point south to the airport the bay is heavily poisoned. A Taiwanese plastics and textile conglomerate called Tuntex Properties Company bought 840 acres of toxic-contaminated land from Southern Pacific Railroad in 1989 for $108 million. The company wants to build a UCSF medical school facility, a discount mall, a regional shopping center, a 3,350-room hotel, a world trade center, up to 6,400 houses, and a Geneva Avenue extension to Highway 101.
BAYSHORE RAILROAD SUPERFUND SITE: 30 acres of 180-acre former Southern Pacific railyard in Visitacion Valley. A 1000-foot plume of chemicals flows in the ground water, including TCE (trichloroethylene) at 62,000 times the drinking-water standard. Also has high levels of vinyl chloride, lead, heavy metals and an oil spill that soaked 660,000 acre-feet of soil.
BRISBANE GARBAGE DUMP: For more than 30 years, San Francisco dumped garbage into the Bay at Brisbane, below San Bruno Mountain, creating a 600-acre landfill, 40 feet deep, filled with household garbage, hospital infectious waste and industrial chemicals. The former tideland abuts the Brisbane Lagoon which collects storm water pollution and leachate pollution from the dump, which in turn seeps into the bay during the tides.
THE PG&E MARTIN SERVICE CENTER SUPERFUND SITE: Across the street from the rail yard a gas-manufacturing plant operated between the 1890s and 1915. It left behind benzene and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, both carcinogens. It is close to a nearby childcare center and public housing project, which are actually built on soil dug from the gas plant site.
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Interview with Ruth Gravanis, longtime board member of San Francisco Tomorrow, summer 2010, part of the Ecology Emerges collection.
Interview conducted and edited by Chris Carlsson, video by David Martinez return to San Bruno Mountain