I picked up a flyer at the Lake Merritt Farmer's Market last weekend that almost knocked me off my feet. Remember how West Oakland celebrated a landmark agreement with the city two years ago to relocate two recycling businesses that had fouled that neighborhood with pollution and fumes from hundreds of trucks rumbling through that residential area?
Remember how Mayor Jean Quan and the City Council touted the win-win solution to relocate both California Waste Solutions (CWS) and Custom Alloy Scrap Sales (CASS) Metals from West Oakland to the former Oakland Army Base?
Guess what? That win-win solution is turning into a stinking mess. Debt problems for the Port of Oakland are impacting on redevelopment of the former Army Base. That seems to be creating delays that will push back the relocation of those two firms. Now, to make matters worse, one of them, CWS, wants to expand its Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) at 10th Street and Pine. CWS is bidding with the City of Oakland to handle garbage services and needs to expand the facility to do that work in the neighborhood it was going to leave!
This is not what they and the city promised when the City Council voted 7-0 in 2011 to pursue negotiations with CASS and CWS. It was a grand solution to a decades-old problem and promised to rid West Oakland of daily pollution from diesel recycling trucks rumbling through its streets. Now West Oakland may face garbage trucks as well.
Why is no one demanding that the City keep to its agreement? Nothing has changed for the people of West Oakland. These large West Oakland recycling companies can be moved from a residential area to vacant industrial land, namely the 28-acre acre North Gateway area of the former base CWS and CASS were going to buy adjacent to the East Bay Municipal Utility District's wastewater treatment plant. The win-win solution promised community benefits and new jobs resulting from the relocation as well.
Instead, CWS, which has a recycling contract with the city, is bidding for the city's garbage contract and needs to expand the same MRF that was going to move to the army base. If the City approves this proposal, hundreds more diesel trucks with pour into the West Oakland neighborhood to that facility located directly across the street from residential homes.
What is going on in this city? They put out an RFP which Waste Management apparently won with a low bid. They went through all this fancy secrecy about what they could or could not discuss in public about this contract and other shenanigans related to the Oakland garbage contract (see some earlier Mad Ivan rants on the subject: see Oakland's Zero-Waste Plans Are Commendable - But Can We Afford Them? and I'm still watching this Recology thing...Are You? and Something Stinks in EBMUD).
Who knows how this shambolic situation is going to end? In the meantime, the company that committed to West Oakland residents that it would relocate both of its MRF operations from West Oakland (the other in at 3300 Wood Street), now has no current time frame on when it will move to the former army base. It means the suffering isn't over for West Oakland - the poor air quality, the pollution and diesel truck traffic that perpetuates an injustice we thought was past. The community's health and well-being for children and families continues to be at risk, regardless of the promises of corporations and politicians.
As the flyer at the farmer's market says: We need to Clean West Oakland Now!
That flyer you picked up, the one at the Farmer's Market, what did it say?
ReplyDeleteThe flyer said that CWS is seeking the Oakland garbage contract, and because CWS hasn't moved its recycling facilities yet from West Oakland to the former Oakland Army Base in the Port, that would mean more garbage trucks coming into West Oakland instead of the City and CWS living up to its commitment to relocate to the former army base.
ReplyDeleteSomeone else noted that CWS does intend to move to the Port. But when?
In the meantime, why did CWS offer its current Oakland facilities (at 10th and Pine and at 3300 Wood St) to the Central Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority in a bid for that county's services. Last September, David Duong, president and CEO of CWS wrote to the CCCSWA: "CWS maintains available capacity at its Oakland facilities for approximately 250,000 additional tons of recyclable materials - sufficient to assure efficient receiving, processing and marketing of recyclable materials from the CCCSWA." (see for reference http://www.hfh-consultants.com/CCCSWA/1_CWS_Processing_Transport_Proposal.pdf)
We only want the city and CWS to live up to the commitment to relocate these facilities to the Port, but until that happens, all the trucks go in and out of West Oakland, and promoting those facilities for additional recycling capacity or garbage is not getting trucks out of the neighborhood, it risks bringing more of them in.