Dust rising from construction work now going on at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard redevelopment project poses no special danger to either workers or neighbors, according to a report released today by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
While critics of the project have long complained that the dust contains asbestos and other toxics that were damaging the health of people living near the project, the new report found that "best practices for dust monitoring and mitigation are in place ... to protect the community."
The report differs little from a draft version made public in January. The EPA did the study at the request of local groups concerned that the city and Lennar, the project's developer, were ignoring community concerns about the dust.
Dust from Parcel A, where Lennar now is doing preliminary work for a housing project, "meets all appropriate (health) standards," said Mark Ripperda, who wrote the EPA report. The agency is still monitoring the Navy's cleanup of toxic materials on the rest of the former shipyard and has found no community health hazards in the way the work is being done, he added.
Naturally occurring metals in the shipyard dust do not pose "an unacceptable risk," while radiation measured at all the Navy excavations "is below levels set for residential exposure," the report stated.
An attorney involved in a suit against Lennar over the dust argued that the report did not review contaminate levels for 2006 and 2007, when the grading and the dust were at their height.
"No one has ever come up with safe levels of exposure to asbestos, only acceptable levels," said Linda Dardarian.
The report was good news for Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, whose district includes the shipyard.
"What we have in front of us is evidence and proof, not from one agency, not from two agencies, not from three agencies but from a whole cadre of agencies," she said.
People who still want to complain about danger from the dust need to provide proof of their own, Maxwell added.
But the original complaints played an important role in convincing the city to "be the best we could be" when it came to monitoring the site for health concerns, she said.
-John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle City Insider
