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Down in the Dumps: Brisbane
debates future of toxic Baylands landfill
By Sabrina Crawford | Staff Writer Published
on Monday, May 24, 2004
BRISBANE -- Can an age-old toxic dump truly be transformed
into a 21st Century community gem?
And if so, just what sort of diamond in the rough should it
become? That's the complex question Brisbane residents, city
officials and scientists grappled with when the community
came together recently to discuss the future of the more than
500-acre former landfill known as the Baylands.
"It's amazing what can be done," said Stephanie Shakofsky,
executive director of the California Center for Land Recycling.
"Really successful sites are being built on things people
never would have dreamed of building on 20 years ago," Shakofsky
said.
Former home to the Southern Pacific railyard and the city
dump, the bay-front acreage has soil contaminated with a mixture
of heavy oils and metals known for leaching methane gas. For
this reason, it's been empty for some time.
But possible redevelopment of the spot, which stretches between
U.S. Highway 101 and Bayshore Boulevard from Sunnybrae Avenue
in the north, to the Brisbane Lagoon in the south, has been
stirring in the background for three decades.
And now that landowner Universal Paragon Corp. is talking
about a possible commercial and retail development, some see
a window of opportunity to accelerate clean-up and remove
a longtime eyesore. "Development is a good way to get remediation
you want because you can't build without addressing the toxin
issues," said Ignacio Dayrit, a CCLR consultant, who also
works part-time for the city of Emeryville.
Showing slides with projects ranging from massive office and
retail plazas to a railway station to a downtown water plaza,
Dayrit said the possibilities are limitless. "It all depends
on what the community wants," he said. "And then if you have
an idea what you want you can go forward from there, because
different types of uses require different remediation."
Many locals remain wary.
"What's the dividing line between a brownfield and a blackfield?"
asked Brisbane resident Wayne Hendryx.
While Hendryx said he supports finding something positive
to do with the site, he said he wants to make sure health
and safety precautions are top priority. "I agree it should
be used someway, somehow, for something," he said. "But a
lot of stuff has happened on that site over the years. It
wasn't just a dump."
Several residents wanted to know what sort of studies had
been done on the long-term health effects for people who live
or work on former dump sites, and how the site would be monitored
after construction.
While developers are interested in an office and retail setup,
a debate has been brewing on the sidelines about the pros
and cons of creating housing, and there are a group of residents
who say they would rather see something environmentally friendly
like wetlands --which are known for helping to naturally regenerate
problematic sites.
Brisbane Mayor Michael Barnessaid it's still likely to take
the city two more years just to complete a site-specific plan,
clean-up and reconstruction even further off.
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