I Took a Breath and Now I Feel Better

Last week I slammed the Alameda Sun and editor Dennis Evanosky over their front page stori-torial concerning the Alameda Point - Measure A Exception signature gathering.

I want to thank Mr. Evanosky for his plain language analysis in this week's "Sun" regarding Point Clean Up. The analysis was well written, easy to follow and (I believe) lays a nice foundation to ask the right questions to our leaders about the risks involved in Point toxics removal. (If you recall I've stated on several occasions on this blog that I assume there are more toxics in the ground than the Navy thinks and it will cost a lot more to clean it up than they've stated.) The gist as I understand the analysis:

1. The Navy cleans up everything that's in or under the ground.
2. The Developer (Sun-Cal for now) cleans up everything that's in a structure or infrastructure

Seems simple enough.

The tricky parts are the timing as it feels like there's a bit of a Catch-22 scenario in when things actually start happening.

• The Navy doesn't start it's clean up until the land is conveyed to the City.
• The Developer doesn't start it's work until the Navy's work is completed AND the City has conveyed the land to the Developer.

So the questions are:

1. What are the criteria for the Navy to convey the land to the City? I believe these are published somewhere, if I recall correctly the Navy doesn't convey the land until the City has an approved re-development plan?
2. What are the City's options once the Navy announces it has completed it's clean up? If there is more work to be done is there risk and contingency built into the Navy's budget to cover it?
3. Likewise, what are the checks and balances on the Developer's clean up and what is the risk and contingency factor in their plan?
4. What if there are areas discovered to be so toxic that they become show stoppers for phases of the project or the entire project itself? What are the assurances that the City has in order to prevent it from losing it's entire wardrobe? (I'm thinking seaplane lagoon here - covered in another article by Dennis also on the front page of Wednesday's Sun.)

An analysis answering these questions in similar straightforward fashion would be a great next step. I might actually allow the Sun to keep throwing their paper on my front yard