Earlier this year, a technician waving a device resembling a magic wand became preoccupied with Adam Michaels’ downstairs shower. “Woah!” Michaels recalls him exclaiming. “We got a hotspot here!”
This is never a good thing to hear about your shower.
And especially not on this day. The technician was from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, and he was searching for vapor intrusions of the carcinogen tetrachloroethylene, a chemical commonly used by dry-cleaners which is, mercifully, better known as PCE. These vapors are odorless and, without a magic wand, undetectable. On this day, they registered at more than four times the acceptable threshold.
“It doesn’t look good for my home,” says Michaels, a 25-year teacher at Lowell High School who has lived in the Sunset with his middle-school teacher wife for two decades and raised two children in this house. “There are probably countless people who live near dry-cleaners and don’t realize what they’re breathing. At least we found out.”
Michaels lives a stone’s throw from 2550 Irving St., which is now a large patch of dirt and was formerly a police credit union — and, notably, was also in close proximity to not one, but two longstanding dry-cleaners. The parcel also once housed a former mortuary, and was formerly bookended by a pair of gas stations. Elevated levels of toxic PCE were detected on site at the police credit union in 2019. By March of that year, use of the second floor and eastern half of the first floor was cut off to employees.
In the not-too-distant future, this parcel is slated to be a seven-story, 90-unit, 100-percent affordable structure earmarked for families and the formerly homeless. The Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association, incorporated in 2021 to, it seems, specifically combat this project, has lost at every turn, including a second reversal before the Board of Appeals last week.
Attempts to alter or derail this project followed the predictable playbook used by neighborhood groups who do not wish to endure alterations to their neighborhood. The neighbors complained about its “out of scale” size or impact or aesthetics. They’ve also gone to court: The Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association has filed a suit against the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, claiming the future 2550 Irving developer didn’t do adequate outreach. This suit is ongoing.
Other, more strident neighbors — but not, its members claim, the Mid-Sunset group — have objected to the affordable nature of the project. This is more than a little unseemly: The posters that an anonymous person or group littered the neighborhood with in 2021 read “No Slums in the Sunset,” a less-than-subtle allusion to the income level of the future inhabitants at 2550 Irving. And their race.
So, that was the backdrop heading into last week’s Board of Appeals hearing, during which the Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association objected to the state’s approach to dealing with PCE on this site. As such, “toxins!” was perceived by project proponents and city government officials as one more iteration of “wolf!” being cried by this group, following “out of scale!” and “not enough parking!” and “too darn tall!”
It warrants mentioning that, at this point, nobody was (overtly) attempting to derail — or even delay — the project. That ship has sailed. Regardless, the appellants lost, in what appears to be their final redress. This project, and any environmental remediation here, is out of their control.
That the project is moving forward is, on the whole, fantastic. But this process was not. Neighbors’ bad-faith or feckless arguments about “scale” and “impact” have jaundiced most everyone else regarding their legitimate concerns about neighborhood toxins. As such, everyone dug in their heels, and what would’ve been a natural concession became untenable — yes, this is about building much-needed housing, but it’s also about winning. “It would’ve been nice to not focus on all the other things, so we could focus on the toxic waste,” says District 4 supervisor Joel Engardio, who represents the neighborhood. “But that did not happen.”
It most definitely did not. And this is a shame, because “toxins!” is not just a strategic ploy for Adam Michaels and his neighbors. The process here has taken its course. Their issues remain.
Perhaps the most maddening takeaway from last week’s Board of Appeals hearing — itself a six-hour testament to the ritual nature of San Francisco public process — was that so much clarity could’ve been derived from a series of tests pegged at $20,000 and requiring perhaps a week’s work. When a project requires years of process and scores of millions of dollars, these sorts of numbers are negligible.
But these tests have not been undertaken.
We are doing our best to spare you the most mind-numbing details of government process and soil science, but this is a story laden with both. Here goes: Both the neighborhood association and the Board of Appeals thought an agreement was reached in February to undertake PCE testing in the footprint of a former dry-cleaning business at 2550 Irving, with the testing method being identical to the tests already performed across the street at the site of a second dry-cleaner. This would enable an apples-to-apples comparison of toxins (PCE-to-PCE, less appetizingly).
But this did not happen: The Department of Toxic Substances Control in fact, did different sorts of testing analyzing different sorts of things, which cost more than five times as much money.
Separate and apart from the science here, this is confusing, even for neighborhood residents and city officials staunchly in favor of this project. “You would think that the tests they did on two sites, on two different sides of the street, would be the same, so they’d have a true comparison,” said Engardio. Toxic Substances Control “is claiming it did all the testing, and everything is fine. But it does not match up to what the neighborhood asked for, or what a layperson might see as apples to apples.”
Engardio stresses that “it’s not my role to second-guess a state agency that’s in charge of keeping people safe.” But, if only to check off a box, “it is baffling to me they would not have done apples to apples tests just to take this argument off the table.”
Dan Grasmick, an engineer and environmental consultant speaking on behalf of the neighborhood association, went further. At last week’s meeting, he called the state’s tests “seriously flawed,” and said its testing regimen “appears to have been designed to not identify a primary source.”
Let us not step between dueling soil scientists. This is not an area most of us know from a hole in the ground — and the credentials for both the neighbors’ consultants and the state authorities are impeccable. Let’s focus instead on procedure, and basic human relations. If the same set of tests had been undertaken on both former dry-cleaner sites, and the results showed negligible PCE on-site at 2550 Irving, then any attempts by the neighbors to prevaricate and continue their objections would’ve revealed them to be bad-faith obstructionists, and their case would’ve been righteously swatted away, Bill Russell-like, by the Board of Appeals.
And if the apples-to-apples testing came back showing problematic levels of PCE, then wouldn’t it be nice to know? Wouldn’t that help inform what next steps to take on a site that the state continues to insist does not require environmental remediation?
Again, let us render unto soil scientists what is soil scientists’. But, for any human being who occasionally relates to other human beings, the argument “I didn’t do what you wanted, I did something else. And it cost waaaaaaay more money — and you should be grateful” is not a winner.
Our questions to a Toxic Substances Control spokeswoman, regarding why the agency chose to do things the way it did, was not answered by press time.
Looming over the entire Board of Appeals process like Banquo’s ghost was SB35, a Sen. Scott Wiener law that streamlines the construction of affordable housing and undercuts much local impediment-making of the sort San Francisco is famous for. It remains unclear if the appeals board could’ve legally returned any verdict other than approving the 2550 Irving development process, no matter what the arguments were.
It’s hard to inveigh against SB35, in either the abstract or the concrete. San Francisco (and other municipalities) set up land-use procedures like something out of “The Lady or the Tiger,” and the state has stepped in. The city had this coming. What’s depressing, however, is to see a query regarding toxic contamination handled via the familiar rote political script of partisans trading barbs in an endless public hearing.
Do citizens owe state authorities respect in matters such as these? Yes. But they do not owe them obeisance. The Department of Toxic Substances Control’s methodology, and continued insistence that no environmental remediation is called for, remain counter-intuitive and baffling — to the neighbors, to the neighbors’ hired subject-matter experts and, notably, to area residents and elected officials who fervently support this affordable development.
And, perhaps most of all, to Adam Michaels. After testing revealed high levels of PCE at his home, he says state officials told him there may be some manner of contaminant throwing off the results. Perhaps paint, or a gun-cleaning fluid. But he has no gun, and, to the best of his knowledge, nobody dumped any cans of paint down the shower.
Watching the hearings regarding 2550 Irving was troubling for Michaels and his wife. Neither of them missed the part where experts stated that PCE is most harmful for the elderly and the young — and they raised their children here. “It would be nice,” says Michaels with a sigh, “if someone said, ‘Let’s get rid of that stuff.’”
But that’s not the plan moving forward.
“I understand why the developer wouldn’t want to pay to clean up the entire neighborhood,” he says. That wouldn’t be fair. “I understand why the Department of Toxic Substances Control would protect them.”
“But I also thought they’d protect me.”
Prior coverage:
Irving St. affordable housing to proceed after soil toxin appeal is rejected — again
After a six-hour Board of Appeals hearing on Wednesday, an appeal to delay a 100-percent affordable housing project at 2550 Irving St. was denied. The project will now almost certainly go ahead. The decision split the board down the middle in a 2-2 vote. Commissioners Alex Lemberg and John Trasviña favored granting the site permit…
90-unit Irving St. housing OKed despite toxin fears
On Wednesday night, the Board of Appeals struck down an environmental appeal that would have imposed extra requirements on the construction of a 90-unit affordable housing project in the Sunset in a 3-2 vote. The 2550 Irving St. project is poised to replace the former Police Credit Union building with a 100-percent affordable, seven-story apartment…
The 2550 neighborhood has asked for environmental clean-up. Our citizens should be able to expect that from our leaders.
Commissioner Trasvina says it best:
“I’m ready to grant the appeal, based on an overreliance on, and misplaced deference to, DTSC,” said Trasviña, referring to the Department of Toxic Substance Control. He contended that the agency did not meet and communicate enough with residents, and said he was disappointed it did not complete the additional soil vapor tests the Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association requested.
“If we really believe in affordable housing, if we really believe in the public health of the people of San Francisco, and future people in San Francisco, then we have to do this right,” he said.
Thanks for a stating the facts so well Mr. Eskenazi.
The BOA vote was disappointing because it was the only government entity with the power to compel the city and state agencies (DTSC and DPH in particular) to act on their responsibility to protect the 2550 residents and neighbors from poisonous contamination
The state DTSC is an obtuse regulator. They are famous for ignoring and disregarding local feedback, input or feelings. They are technocrats of the inflexible and tone-deaf kind. They have a history of corrupt or inept leadership. And they have a superiority complex when it comes to dealing with local jurisdictions. The state’s default is that it trumps any locals.
I can’t say for their capacity for investigation, but what you describe is exactly how I want the DTSC to operate. It shouldn’t matter what local feedback is. Like at all. Just that the science is sound.
It should also trump the locals.
The issue is that their “science” sometimes leads to different conclusions and different results for the neighborhoods involved. Some sites with the same levels of PCE contamination in CA get cleanups, others like this one don’t. If it’s within a certain very wide range of PCE levels, unfortunately it falls to DTSC’s discretion which leads to inequitable results like in this case.
Ed, but what if the science isn’t “sound.” And what if DTSC is doing things that many scientists and engineers who work with them think is extremely bad science and also goes against DTSC’s own published guidance rules? Who is DTSC accountable to then? Every city agency deferred to them. In fact “community acceptance” is one of the important factors DTSC is supposed to consider when making a clean-up decision. “Cleanup decisions are based upon a combination of science, finances, and other factors. For this reason, state and federal laws provide opportunities for public input.”
As an example of why community acceptance is important is that when DTSC made the decision to not test for PCE vapor in any nearby houses, it did so with the wrong assumption about the local conditions (100+ year old crumbling and cracked foundations). Two and an half years ago I invited the project manager out to see for himself and when saw all the cracks he changed his mind on whether the houses should be tested. What they found is vapor intrusion in 5 or 6 houses 4X over DTSC’s risk level. They have continued to test and they are still finding vapor intrusion.
DTSC has an entire advisory guidance document on Vapor Intrusion Public Participation. Communities around the state often provide input on cleanup decisions.
Unfortunately one of the “other factors” that goes into making a decision whether to clean up a brownfield also includes extreme pressure from state and local politicians that can and does affect the process. There is at least one rogue person at DTSC who is using this project to weaken environmental safeguards that have protected CA citizens for decades. As BOA Commissioner Lemberg stated at the end of the appeal hearing: “there is something that stinks about this process”. But Lemberg doesn’t know the half of it.
For those concerned about affordable housing in this city, we should all be very concerned by DTSC ignoring processes that are designed to make sure the science is interpreted and applied consistently. Because that didn’t happen, the current neighbors around 2550 Irving and the future ones at the 2550 affordable housing apartments will have to live with a higher risk for cancer, Parkinson’s, and other neurological diseases, unlike most other California residential areas with similar levels of PCE.
And the science in this case is NOT sound.
They did not do the proper testing or fix the issue.
Nice defense of the indefensible though?
I’m not totally following the complaint here – across the street the state did one kind of testing. Here it did a different kind. Are any of the people who are mad about that difference able to articulate what is wrong with the second kind of testing besides “it is different”? If that’s the only complaint really feels like we’re back in bad-faith land.
I used to work on contaminated sites. When we decided not to be involved in projects, it was never because the site was too toxic, and always because the people next door were. Ironically, that generally meant they got to continue living next to the dirty vacant lot for the foreseeable future.
Erin, that’s a good question and the answer can be found in geologist’s Don Moore’s declaration to the BOA on p123 of the published brief . It is technical, but boils down to DTSC using a qualitative measurement (she’s tall e.g.) rather than using the quantitative measurements (she’s 6 foot 2 inches) they and everyone else have been using for every other sampling test in the area over the last 4 years. This made it impossible to compare data sets. Except for a single probe, DTSC avoided testing on the footprint of the Miracle dry cleaners.
What DTSC did do was very consciously spend more than $100,000 of TNDC’s money so TNDC could say “there’s no PCE [liquid] on our property.” In fact there’s a lot of PCE vapor on their property. But DTSC or TNDC didn’t want to measure the Miracle Cleaners site where a PCE release likely took place. And this was confusing to some of the BOA commissioners. The money strategy seems to have been a good investment because DTSC convinced two commissioners out of 5 to vote for them—which was enough to sink the appeal. Sadly for TNDC’s future residents—it may not be such a bargain.
No one contests that there is a huge PCE plume that is under the whole area around 2550 Irving. This toxic gas moves and shifts over time. And if there are cracks in a building’s foundation it will enter the building. It entered the Police Credit Union building at 2550 when people were still working there. The Police Credit Union’s own environmental consultant measured this and wrote that: “AllWest concludes that PCE soil vapor intrusion has impacted the indoor air quality of the subject site building and is a potential human health risk to building occupants.” The PCE amount was above the DTSC risk level for commercial sites—which is a much higher threshold than for residential settings. This is the same PCE gas that has been found by DTSC in my neighbors’ houses which is also 4X DTSC’s own risk level. No physician/scientist who studies PCE will say they know the dose that is necessary to cause a particular disease. But what they will say is duration and long-term exposure is very bad.
Joe Eskenazi’s article does a very good job of pointing out the dilemma we’re in and how we’ve all been failed by the city and state organizations who are responsible for keeping us safe. Why put people on a site when you know there’s a health danger? And why, when there is a solution to vapor intrusion that is cheaper and more permanent than the bandaid that TNDC is putting on the ground and is subject to failure– would you want to add to the stresses of people you are providing necessary housing for?
Is this failure an unfortunate glitch in the environmental justice process…is it an unreflective reliance on journalists who (with some exceptions) have been getting the story all wrong? Cynical (and well-meaning) politicians who want to score easy points? The fact is whenever I talk about these issues with affordable housing advocates, they scratch their head and wonder why cleanup isn’t happening. This could have been done and finished two years ago. It can even be done now—without causing a delay in the building construction. There is something perversely wrong here. Not only for us residents who have been breathing PCE for decades but for the future residents of 2550. Neighbors like me wonder whether PCE exposure has contributed to the large number of cancers and Parkinsons in homes near the site. Do we also want the future families in 2550 wondering the same? The Chron successfully demonized this neighborhood early on. Perhaps the pressure needs to come from TNDC’s own friends. Because this can’t be good for affordable housing in SF.
Great reply and informative. This is just another example of monied developer interests pushing forward a project with graft instead of actual science and regulation as it was intended when written into law.
The Scott Wiener / London Breed model of papered-over non-governance.
The Board of Appeals no voters did not take in to account that under the current building permit granted the toxins which endanger both the new building’s tenants and the adjoining neighbors will not be removed. This is appalling and unacceptable.
“Neighbors’ bad-faith or feckless arguments about “scale” and “impact” have jaundiced most everyone else regarding their legitimate concerns about neighborhood toxins. ”
Maybe we shouldn’t let it be so easy for cranks to consistently gum up the works every time with vapid, insubstantial complaints about “neighborhood character” and the like, so that the grownups can have the serious discussions about the real practical issues.
Why not use the same test across sites? What are the pros and cons of each? So many questions. It’s not scalable to do this for every development. My gut says the opposition is just seeking to muddy the waters but wish we had access to the underlying documents to know for sure.
Paul Holzman has a very good answer to this in one of the comments in this thread
When the subsurface remnants of the former gasoline station at 490 South Van Ness were remediated in the mid 2010s, volatile organic hydrocarbons were emitted for weeks. I called the DPH and they stopped construction once to twice. But there was no plan for dealing with toxics under an affordable housing building.
Neighbors opposed the market rate condo building with parking that was entitled and enthusiastically supported the 100% affordable building with no parking that got built.
Here’s a suggestion: Name the Building after (Uncle) Benny Yee, who recently died, and maybe that’ll soften up some of the neighborhood opposition.
(Charlie Mader sells condos for a living and is a developer shill on several outlets.)
The back and forth around PCE at the side is (obviously?) a side show. Neighbors are against the project, I recon because two factors:
– It’s “affordable”, not affordable. Built by a non profit that is in the business of continuing to amass power. I suggest ML take a look how many working class families in the area qualify and get a leg up on the wait list
– If this project was indeed to fill the need for workforce family housing, it couldn’t go down without consideration for car parking. It appears it needs constant reminding that getting to and from a job where you’re expected to show up at 5:30a every day will have folks get a car
TNDC is in the business of continuing to amass power? Really?
Still with the car thing? God forbid we don’t build another parking lot!
What is good for the TODCO is good for the TNDC, no? Scaffolding to keep up the facade: Part of the program, so is patrolling social media posts apparently.
On the transportation situation: We are talking about ppl who do actual work for a living, construction as an example, where you are expected to show up at a particular time in the early mornings’ to go swing a hammer. That’s not the type you attract when you limit/forgo parking, simple as that. Hence the neighborhood anxieties who I’d venture would have fielded considerably less objections otherwise.
SB35 was created to streamline the construction of housing. It is not about affordable housing only, and as a journalist it is important to be specific with your words. This nuance matters, especially as related to this current Housing Element, as there are penalties for not producing the total number of units (over 82,000) but there are not penalties for not producing affordable units. Rather, the number of affordable units we should be building is a mere suggestion. Not only that but if we don’t build the total number of units (again they do not need to be affordable) we LOSE our money to build affordable units.
This matters in this story because it provides additional context. Yes, this is a complicated and complex situation with a lot of specific details. And as a journalist it is your responsibility to help clarify that specificity.
As related to the tests and such, this lack of clarity by all of the various parties involved in meant to squash ALL affordable housing from getting produced, not just this particular site. It is meant to confuse the average San Franciscans and stir up contention between various fractions, even groups that share similar goals. All as a means to create policies like SB35 that weaken public input into crucial civic projects through “streamlining” rather than actually improving public process and getting money out of it.
Sorry, but you can’t pass the buck from the Mayor to the neighbors for the City’s failure in producing plans – let alone actual units – for 82K units of housing. This appeal isn’t about that, and you do a disservice to AH supporters within and outside the MSNA who are asking MOHCD why they won’t consider options to spend the same amount of money to build twice as many AH units in less time, or why MOHCD is choosing to rack up legal fees rather than do the right thing 2 years ago so the AH here could move on. Maybe more AH supporters should ask why this City would opt to continue a bad tradition of knowingly building AH on toxic land where families inevitably get sick. SB35 is all about densifying along high-resource traffic corridors – great! Along the way, there will be more dry cleaners, gas stations, etc that will get redeveloped – great! Hopefully not all of those sites will be this contaminated, but if others are, all we are asking is that you clean it up before you build it up. What’s the point of taking pride in CA having higher standards if we don’t adhere to them? And if we let DTSC off the hook for the gross mismanagement of this site, you can bet your sweet bippy, they will copy and paste this approach to other contaminated AH sites. The only winner so far is the SFPCU who laughed their ass all the way to the bank once they cashed their check at closing and exited their voluntary CLRRA agreement. How is any of this progress for anyone who believes in safe, affordable housing?