Bullet waste still riddles the ground at Sharp Park
By: Katie Worth
Examiner Staff Writer
July 16, 2009
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| Prove it: Pacifica City Manager Steve Rhodes says San Francisco likes to tout its environmental record, but doesn’t seem too keen on cleaning up lead from Sharp Park. (Mike Koozmin/Special to The Examiner) |
Ask Pacifica City Manager Stephen Rhodes what he thinks of San Francisco’s reputation as an environmentally conscious city, and his normally buoyant tone turns bitter.
“San Francisco always cites their environmental credentials,” he said, “but they seem to be OK with leaving the lead in their land here.”
The lead to which Rhodes referred is the incalculable number of bullets that riddle the soil at Sharp Park Rifle Range in Pacifica.
The shooting range, and neighboring golf course, however, are owned by San Francisco. The City had operated the 6-acre range for 36 years when residents of a nearby neighborhood reported finding bullets on their property. It was shut down in 1988.
In the years since, the land has sat fallow, despite what Pacifica and San Mateo County leaders describe as repeated efforts to work with San Francisco to clean up the site. The rifle range is still circled by a chain-link fence, as nothing can be done with the land until the 12,000 to 16,000 cubic yards of heavy-metal-contaminated soil on the site is addressed.
Now, more than two decades after it closed, a cleanup plan for the site has been given the green light.
The plan was unanimously approved by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission at a June 18 public hearing. The cleanup will cost about $844,000 and will be overseen by the state Department of Toxic Substance Control. The lead-poisoned soil will not be removed, but instead will be consolidated to a limited portion of the site and covered, after which ongoing monitoring will be conducted.
The delay in remedying the lead issue was due to “cost constraints and other hurdles,” San Francisco Recreation and Park Department Project Manager Dan Mauer said in a memo last month to commissioners.
But the proposal is not without controversy. The June 18 hearing took less than two minutes and was attended by no one from San Mateo County. San Mateo County Environmental Health Director Dean Peterson, along with Rhodes, said they were not notified of the meeting and did not see its outcome as cause to declare victory.
The “consolidate and cap” plan The City has authorized has been opposed by both Pacifica and the county, Peterson said. It calls for the property’s contaminated topsoil to be bulldozed and contained to 1.5 acres, and covered with mesh and 2 feet of clean soil.
To discourage picnickers or curious children, the toxic soil will be piled into steep hills, said Karen Toth, supervising engineer for the Toxic Substance Control Department. The state agency looks for the right balance of cost, safety and feasibility when considering remediation plans, she said, and the Sharp Park solution is considered a safe alternative, particularly since the land is not being used for single-family housing or another sensitive purpose.
Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office also defended the plan.
“The level of protection afforded the environment is no less sound than the more costly approach,” mayoral spokesman Joe Arellano wrote in an e-mail. “It is a responsible plan that will restore the land to a safe condition despite the current economically challenged times.”
San Mateo County, which was once the oversight agency for the project, had pushed San Francisco to thoroughly decontaminate the site by either removing or “stabilizing” all the tainted soil so the entire property could be used as parkland without restrictions, county Environmental Health Director Peterson said.
But in 2005, San Francisco sidestepped San Mateo’s oversight by asking the Toxic Substance Control Department to oversee cleanup management.
Mauer and Carol Northrup, a spokeswoman for the Toxic Substance Control Department, said the switch was made because the state agency has overseen thousands of cleanups. It also relieves San Francisco from any future liability from contamination on the site.
Peterson said the department has more experience overseeing cleanups, but contends there may have been another reason for the switch.
“I believe that San Francisco felt that San Mateo County was requiring too much and that the state was in a better position to approve other options,” he said.
As the capping cleanup plan underwent environmental review in 2007, San Mateo County and Pacifica leaders continued to voice concerns, according to the June San Francisco Rec and Park memo.
“Whenever you take a material such as lead that basically does not go away, once it’s in the environment, it’s in the environment for a really long time,” Peterson said. “It’s not a problem as long as there’s long-term maintenance, but we’re talking for the rest of eternity.”
Toth said the lead does not appear to have leached into soil beyond the contaminated area, which allowed the Toxic Substance Control Department to approve the capping plan.
Mauer said other remediation options were cost-prohibitive. The capping plan that has been approved costs $843,000, but two other cleanup options would cost between $2.5 million and $5 million, according to San Francisco Rec and Park documents.
Mauer told The Examiner the primary reason the site has been untouched for so long is a lack of funding. “It just hasn’t been a priority,” he said.
“Nobody’s been pushing for it, which is one of the reasons it’s never been dealt with,” he said.
Peterson laughed when he heard Mauer’s explanation.
“Our records would show we were definitely trying to work with San Francisco to get this cleanup going in 1993,” Peterson said. “And San Francisco has had many, many opportunities to address this, so I find it hard to believe that statement could be made.”
Park housed ‘enemy aliens’ during internment period
The lead that poisons soil at Sharp Park’s former rifle range is a remnant of one chapter of its past, but the land was also the site of an ugly period for the nation.
From 1942 to 1945, Sharp Park was used as an internment camp that held thousands of Americans of Japanese, Italian and German descent during World War II.
That information was uncovered by Pacifica historian Jim Wagner, who learned of part of the land’s history and decided to delve further. Sharp Park, including the present-day golf course, archery range and fenced-off rifle range, was donated to San Francisco in 1917 with the restriction that it be used for park and recreational purposes.
According to Wagner, that restriction was arguably defied when, after the onset of World War II, the Army and the Immigration and Naturalization Service began rounding up hundreds of thousands of so-called “enemy aliens,” people of Japanese, Italian and German descent.
Quonset huts and barracks were hastily erected to house the detainees at Sharp Park, which was designated an internment camp, while they waited to be transported to a more permanent facility inland, Wagner said.
At one point, some 2,500 people were held at the camp, he said.
After that history was brought to the attention of state and San Francisco officials, The City’s Recreation and Park Department employed an archaeologist to remain on-site during bulldozing and cleanup of toxic soil.
Wagner would like to see the site recognized and better memorialized for its dark place in history.
“You can ask 100 people in Pacifica and maybe one would say, ‘Yeah, I know about that,’” he said. “I’ve been here 34 years and I just heard about it myself.”
— Katie Worth
History of Sharp Park Rifle Range
1917: 450 acres of what was once the San Pedro Ranch is deeded to San Francisco, with the condition that it be used as a public park and open space
1930s: Rifle range site is used as a state relief camp for the unemployed during the Depression
1942-45: Site is used as an internment camp to house people of Japanese, Italian and German descent
1952: A 6-acre section of the park opens as a rifle range
1988: Rifle range closes after bullets were found in a nearby residential neighborhood
1993: San Mateo County begins working with San Francisco to arrange for the cleanup of lead at site
2005: San Francisco asks state Department of Toxic Substance Control to take over cleanup oversight
2007: Environmental review of the cleanup plan begins
2009: San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission approves cleanup plan for site
Sources: San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, Jim Wagner
