[CPEO-BIF] PCE Contamination on Irving Street, San Francisco

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

PCE Contamination on Irving Street, San Francisco:
What Is Acceptable?

by Lenny Siegel
September, 2021

On the surface, the plan to construct about 100 affordable apartments on the site of the San Francisco Police Credit Union (PCU) building on Irving Street is a solid step forward to address the Bay Area’s growing housing crisis. However, beneath the surface of the Mid-Sunset property lies a toxic plume of tetrachlorethylene (PCE) vapors that poses a health threat both to current neighbors and future residents. Still, despite pleas from the neighborhood, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has chosen not to require remediation of the PCE property, relying on passive mitigation to prevent exposure. DTSC’s position is based upon two faulty decisions: First, it divided the plume, likely left behind by two former dry cleaning businesses, into three distinct projects. Second, it considers acceptable an excess lifetime cancer risk of up to one in ten thousand.

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To download the 8.7 MB PDF report, go to http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/PCUPCE.pdf

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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