Hunters Point EIR could spell doom or reprieve for park and community
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will soon make a crucial decision about the Lennar Corporation's immense Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard Phase II development proposal.
The project's Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) will probably go to the city's Planning Commission and Redevelopment Agency some time in April. The document is supposed to contain responses to all the comments submitted on the Draft EIR, but we expect that our comments will be largely ignored, and that the Final EIR will be highly flawed. If the Planning Commission and Redevelopment Agency approve the Final EIR, our only option will be to appeal that decision to the Board of Supervisors - and we expect to have to do so. The Board can then either accept the Final EIR, or it can send it back with instructions for fixing the flaws.
The Sierra Club is especially concerned with three problems in the Draft EIR that we expect to still see in the final document:
- removal of 23 acres of land from a state park;
- the building of a bridge across the wetlands of Yosemite Slough;
- the lack of benefits to the existing Bayview/Hunters Point community.
Confiscating parklands
In the face of one of the largest mass extinctions in history, the DEIR claims that the elimination of the 148 wildlife species identified as present in Candlestick Point State Recreation Area would be an insignificant impact: "any impacts of the Project on common species and habitats would have a negligible effect on regional population and would thus be less than significant" (page III.N-50 - our italics). In other words, it says, if a site doesn't have endangered species, the species there are meaningless.
If all lands supporting wildlife were so treated, we would soon see an exponential growth in endangered species - as all areas supporting wildlife were developed except those hosting endangered species. Scientists have recently developed a new appreciation of the importance of common species. As ecologist Kevin J. Gaston writes in the Jan. 8 issue of Science, common species "may exert a profound influence on the prevailing environmental conditions experienced by other species and thus those that can coexist. . . . [C]ommon species underpin the provision of many ecosystem services, the benefits that ecosystems provide to people." Gaston's article in the country's leading scientific journal is a powerful plea for the preservation of common species.
State parks have a mission to preserve biodiversity, not just endangered species. Lennar, however, wants to take 23 acres of state-park land for building high-end housing. Lennar's project is to extend over 700 acres of land and include 200 or more acres of open space besides the existing state park, yet the DEIR claims that with all that land there is no way to rearrange the design plans to preserve the state-park land. We disagree!
Couldn't all the new open space substitute for the state-park land? No, it couldn't. Unfortunately, Hunters Point was created by crushing serpentine-rock hills next to the Bay and pushing that crushed rock into the Bay. That crushed rock includes heavy metals and serpentinite asbestos. It easily turns into dust that can become airborne in heavy winds and get into people's lungs. The Navy is therefore requiring that all of the open space in the Shipyard be "covered" with clean soil and that its future uses be restricted. (For example, no vegetables can be grown in the ground, but only in planters). We don't disagree with the Navy - the only other choice is to remove the entire Shipyard - but none of the Shipyard can ever be a natural area because the soil will probably be no more than four feet deep. Ground squirrels and other burrowing animals that can go deeper will have to be controlled. Many critters use ground-squirrel burrows, burrowing owls for example, and raptors such as red-tailed hawks feed on ground squirrels. The very basis of a natural food chain is not feasible on the Shipyard lands. Thus, none of the Hunters Point Shipyard open space can replace the habitat lands being lost at Candlestick Point SRA.
Why does Lennar want these particular 23 acres? It's so that it can charge higher rents for being adjacent to the Bay and next to a state park. Do a developer's profits justify the dismemberment of a state park? Biologically these bayshore lands are among the richest for wildlife.
With over 30,000 new residents anticipated in the development, the state park can not afford to lose a single acre. Wildlife species need room, and with the impacts of 30,000 new neighbors they will need all the acreage they can get. People too go to state parks for escape from urban stresses and for a nature experience; without enough room, that escape and that nature experience will never happen.
The Sierra Club has fought hard to preserve Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. When state legislation was proposed that would have taken 42 acres away from the park, we went to Sacramento and convinced our legislators to reduce the maximum take to 23 acres. (We were not successful at changing the bill to take no land at all from the park.) The legislation, now law, does not require the State Parks Department to give up the land - it only asks State Parks to determine if such a course is best for the park. We think not! The Sierra Club is urging the Supervisors to keep the park intact - or even expand it, and to make sure the DEIR is rewritten accordingly.
A bridge over teeming waters
In an era when enlightened leaders work to preserve wetlands, this project proposes to fill wetlands and to build a bridge on invaluable mudflats. The 81-foot wide bridge, within the state park but on an easement the city retained when the state acquired the park, would cross Yosemite Slough right next to a 34-acre tidal-wetland restoration project.
Yosemite Slough's mudflats support hundreds of shorebirds at low tides and hundreds of waterfowl at higher tides. Just try to imagine as a fledgling western snowy plover (a threatened species) takes off on a foggy day. It can't yet really control its flight, and BANG - into the bridge it flies - a short unhappy life.
The bridge is supposed to provide faster exit from games at the proposed 49ers stadium on Hunters Point - events that will take place only 11 or 12 times a year (if at all, since the 49ers want to move to Santa Clara). The bridge is also proposed as a bus rapid transit (BRT) route for the project. Analysis has shown that the time savings of the bridge versus a route around Yosemite Slough would amount to only 1-1/2 minutes. The bridge would cost well over $100 million - nearly $70 million per minute saved. Is that worth the price of destroying the richest aquatic habitat on the east San Francisco shoreline?
Turning one's back on the neighbors
The proposed BRT route would avoid any connection with the existing community. A principle goal of Proposition G, passed in June 2008 by San Francisco voters, was that the Hunters Point development would connect with the Bayview. The route around Yosemite Slough would do this, but the bridge would not.
The proponents boast of the job creation in their plans, but these would be mostly retail and green-technology jobs, rather than the blue-collar jobs that the Bayview most needs. The plan ignores the potential use of the old Navy drydocks for ship work, for example.
WhatYouCanDo
Contact your supervisor at:
City Hall, Room 2244
One Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102.
Eric Mar (District 1)
(415)554-7410
Eric.L.Mar@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-7415;
Michela Alioto-Pier (District 2)
(415)554-7752
Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-7843;
David Chiu (District 3)
(415)554-7450
David.Chiu@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-7454;
Carmen Chu (District 4)
(415)554-7460
Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-7432;
Ross Mirkarimi (District 5)
(415)554-7630
Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-7634;
Chris Daly (District 6)
(415)554-7970
Chris.Daly@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-7974;
Sean Elsbernd (District 7)
(415)554-6516
Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-6546;
Bevan Dufty (District 8)
(415)554-6968
Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-6909;
David Campos (District 9)
(415)554-5144
David.Campos@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-6255;
Sophie Maxwell (District 10)
(415)554-7670
Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-7674;
John Avalos (District 11)
(415)554-6975
John.Avalos@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-6979.
Ask them to reject the current DEIR. Urge them instead to instruct staff to revise and recirculate the DEIR so that the plan would:
- not take 23 acres of state-park land;
- not impact the 148 identified wildlife species at the state park;
- not put a bridge over Yosemite Slough;
- provide an appropriate job mix for the Bayview community.
If you have questions or need help with your comments, call Arthur Feinstein at (415)680-0643 or Chapter conservation coordinator or call (510) 848-0800 ext. 323
