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Bayview Hunters Point Residents and Supporters Confront PG&E at Corporate Headquarters
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Community Members to Attempt to Enter Building and Serve Company CEO with an Eviction Notice for PG&E Hunters Point Power Plant San Francisco, CA -- On Wednesday, March 23, 2005 at 12 noon, 100 Bayview Hunters Point residents and environmental justice supporters gathered at the PG&E corporate headquarters in downtown San Francisco to serve an “eviction notice” to Robert D. Glynn, Jr., Chairman, CEO and President of PG&E, for the Hunters Point power plant, one of San Francisco’s top air polluters. The protest was organized to call for the immediate shutdown of the 75 year old plant. The protest entitled, “PG&E Evicted by the People!” draped the front of PG&E’s corporate headquarters with baby clothes—symbolic of the countless children suffering from asthma as the result of air pollution in southeast San Francisco. Residents from public housing and children burdened by respiratory problems spoke at the rally and shared their stories. “We’re sick of being sick,” said Tessie Ester, President of Huntersview Tenants Association. “If these people breathed the air we do, this plant would have been closed years ago.” “It’s about money, pure and simple,” said Kevyn Lutton, another Bayview Hunters Point resident. “Unfortunately, children that need heavy medication for asthma and eczema caused by power plant pollution just aren’t part of the corporate profit picture.” Marie Harrison, Community Organizer from Greenaction said, “If the government won’t close it, the people will.” PG&E, city officials, and the California Independent Operator repeatedly delayed the closure of the polluting plant since 1998. Most recently, the city announced a new delay by agreeing to wait for the completion of the Jefferson-Martin transmission line before the plant could be closed, if then. The PG&E Hunters Power Plant is the largest stationary source of air pollution in Bayview Hunters Point, putting out almost 600 tons of pollutants annually into the air over Southeast San Francisco. According to the USEPA, these emissions include: 321 tons of nitrogen oxides; 164 tons of carbon monoxide; 52 tons of particulate matter; 13 tons of ammonia; 13 tons of volatile organic compounds; and 12 tons of sulfur dioxide. The event is sponsored by the Coalition to Shut Down the PG&E Hunters Point Power Plant, Huntersview Tenants Association, All Hallows Garden Residents Association, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Code Blue, Community First Coalition, SF Green Party |
