|
Midway Village, Daly City, California California Families Face Medical Problems From Chemicals Left In Soil The families of Midway Village, a housing project built on an abandoned industrial site, have suffered with medical problems that range from leukemia to infertility to cancer. After being shut out of decision-making and ignored by regulators for years, they volunteered for genetic testing. The results were so alarming that the citizens may finally get the attention they deserve. Midway Village appears to be a quiet community with its homes and child care centers scattered across 30 acres. About 150 families call Midway Village their home. But for some of those families, the housing project has been a public health catastrophe that spans three generations, a neighborhood where toxic contamination has left families ill and incapacitated. The problems with Midway Village date to the early 1900s, when the site was owned by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). The company operated an industrial facility that refined oil into gas for lighting, heating and cooking. The process left tar-like soils near the site. After the plant closed in 1913, the site was idle until 1944, when the Pentagon leased the land. Needing emergency housing for midshipmen during World War II, the Pentagon hired contractors to build on the site. Government contractors used soil from underneath the PG&E plant, bulldozing the soil to fill wetlands. In all, more than 20,000 cubic yards of old concrete and soil from the old gas plant were bulldozed to fill marshy areas. Records show that the engineers surveying this site knew that hydrocarbon contaminants existed on and around the property. After the World War and the Korean War, the federal government turned most of the property back to PG&E, but deeded Midway Village to San Mateo County for public housing and schools. In 1976, the county requested federal money to rebuild the aging housing project. But at this time, no tests were conducted on the soil. Four years later, in 1980, officials from PG&E detected contamination in the soils on their property, and hauled some of the soils away. Still, no residents of Midway Village were alerted to the problems. Another four years went by, and then PG&E's property was placed on the Superfund list, making it one of the most contaminated industrial sites in the nation. Still, no officials bothered to meet with Midway residents, so citizens again remained in the dark about the dangers in their own community. In 1989, the company's additional tests revealed that the soils around not just their own property but also Midway housing units are contaminated. But again, the silence continues. It is not until September, 1990, that county officials finally tell residents that they have a problem. Residents now have proof of something that they long suspected: that the environment around their homes has been poisoned. Officials admitted that the soils around and beneath Midway are contaminated with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, also known as PNAs, a class of chemicals that have shown to be linked with cancer. In most urban areas, PNAs can be found at a level of under 10 parts per million, but at Midway in 1990, the levels were as high as 170 parts per million in the surface soil. Under the surface, the levels quadrupled. The soil beneath Midway is a toxic soup of dangerous chemicals, with seven of the chemicals present listed on the EPA's "probable human carcinogen" roster. Residents organized themselves into Midway Residents for Environmental Justice. In 1993, the group took their case to the courts, filing a class-action lawsuit in federal court, claiming negligence on the part of the federal government and the military. The suits were rejected, and state and company officials still maintained that the site posed no imminent health concerns. But the citizens weren't defeated. Instead, they volunteered, and paid for, genetic testing for themselves. The results were alarming. A high number of chromosome aberrations were present in 32 of 34 residents aged 18 and under, and 19 of 24 adults showed abnormal levels of irregularities in their DNA. Medical studies show that people who have high levels of chromosome aberrations are more prone to cancer. Armed with the test results, Midway residents are stepping up their demands. They've filed a lawsuit, and they're insisting on being compensated for decades of medical bills. They've protested outside PG&E offices. Although state regulators are searching for alternative housing for residents, some of the families of Midway Village want something more far-reaching -- justice. Their story should stand as a warning to regulators to listen to residents and involve them in decision-making every step of the way. More information In Midway Village contact Lula Bishop at 415.467.4892 or lulab99@aol.com On the web go to http://www.greenaction.org Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
