Update on the San Francisco, CA Mayor and Port Authority proposal to allow the environmentally criminal Darling International corporation to expand its noxious factory animal agriculture rendering plant in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, to produce even more hazardous biodiesel out of toxic factory farm animal parts:
Below is a report from an attendee of the June 25 public meeting on the plant proposal, and a response from Port representative Richard Berman, which clearly show that the Mayor and the Port are in full disrespect, deception and extortion mode to push this plant hard onto the Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP) neighborhood, which is 40% African American and has a large low income population.
Here is the June meeting report, and the reply from Berman:
Posted by Kristine Enea kristine@indiabasin.org Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:15 pm
Summary of 6/25 meeting on Darling plant
Hi all, here's a summary of the 6/25 meeting about the Darling biodiesel plant from a BVHP resident who attended, and a response from RichardBerman at the Port.
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Hello everyone,
I am sorry it has taken me so long to post a synopsis of the meeting that took place on June 25th about Darling's proposal to build a biodiesel plant at their existing site. There were a lot of "official" type people there including the Mayor's office, 3 Darling executives, a rep from a clean air quality management company, etc.... About 25 of them in total and then the 5 of us fellow residents of BVHP-all of whom voiced our concerns about this proposed biodiesel plant.
We were heard but our questions were not answered as they simply didn't have the answers for us. For example, the representative from the clean air management organization did not know the answer to the question, "Is the air around a biodiesel plant safe to breathe?" Apparently there hasn't been any studies on this. They also couldn't answer the question of what emergency plans would be in place in the event of a spill and how they would effectively notify residents.
There were a few "officials" who were down right insulting and condescending in how they spoke to us. I asked them all if they would live next door to this proposed biodiesel facility and the room fell dead silent. Then I asked them, "Then help me understand why the residents of BVHP should live by it?" That question went unanswered as well.
Below I have copy and pasted a email that I received the following day from Richard Berman of the Port Authority. Please read and let me know your thoughts.
I am awaiting announcement of when the next meeting will be. Before then I would like to know what all of you think of this proposed plant. I am against it. The Port Authority and The Mayor's office contend that this is good for the neighborhood and the city because it will finally put provisions in Darling's lease that will make them comply with controlling odor emissions, etc.....
My response is that as a community we can put enough pressure on them to be good neighbors, to control that disgusting and daily odor, that we don't need to simply accept the addition of a biodiesel plant to our neighborhood. That logic is illogical to me. But what do you think? I think it's another example of putting something in our neighborhood that nobody else would want nor accept in their backyard.
Richard Berman <richard.berman@sfport.com> wrote:
Dear Community Meeting Attendees,
Thank you all for your attendance and thoughtful participation last evening. You asked some very important questions, most of which I hope we were able to answer. I recognize that not all of these questions were answered as well as they could have been. In particular, your concerns about air and odor emissions from the Darling plant and their effects on community health require a more informed response by the Port and the regulators. We are committed to providing that to you. Additional issues that we will address are:
- How Darling's connection to the combined sewer system would affect the SE Plant?
- How we might develop a community notification system similar to what PG&E did for the power plant, and the Navy did for the Shipyard?
- Disclosure of how many facilities in the 94124 zip code are regulated by Department of Public Health-Hazardous Materials Unified Program Agency
- Opportunities for public review of Darling's Operations Plan - As I stated last night, the Port believes this project is a worthwhile one with several benefits, including the additional improvements to control emissions from the plant beyond those required by regulation or the current lease. Even so, we recognize that the types of concerns that you raised must be addressed, which is why we invited staff from the US EPA Environmental Justice Program to the meeting and will continue to request their participation in future meetings. Staff at the Port recognize the importance of these issues and we heard very clearly the concerns that were expressed last night.
We will schedule the next meeting for sometime in early July. I look forward to seeing you there and I also look forward to the opportunity to present a more informed response to the concerns that were raised last night. In closing, I want to confirm with you that the Port takes very seriously these issues and works hard with our neighbors and tenants to address them.
If you have any questions prior to the next meeting, please feel free to contact me.
Richard Berman
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"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate
themselves." – Che Guevara
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