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San Mateo Times January 27, 2000  See Also San Mateo County Times, 1/26/00 San Mateo County Times, 1/20/00 San Mateo County Times, 1/5/00 San Mateo County Times, 12/14/99 For more information, contact:
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Midway Residents: Vouchers Won't Do Group prepares health survey to document ailments By Jessica M. Scully DALY CITY -- Residents at a housing project built on contaminated soil say an attempt to get them emergency housing vouchers doesn't go far enough to undo the harm they say they have suffered from living on a site infested with chemicals. Those who live at Midway Village should be immediately moved from the site, compensated for what they feel is a history of neglect by federal and state agencies and get adequate medical care, community leaders said Wednesday night at a community meeting. The residents were joined by members of Greenaction, a San Francisco-based environmental watchdog group. With the aid of Greenaction, community leaders are urging residents to fill out a health survey to document alleged health problems and to contact local political representatives and the government agencies that regulate toxins. They are readying for what they feel will be an upcoming battle with state and federal agencies who regulate toxic substances after more than a decade of disputes over whether toxins at the site have caused a host of health problems for residents. "They (the agencies) won't do anything unless you pull them out in the open," said community leader and Midway resident Lula Bishop. "The agencies don't understand what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night and see your child with its nose all bloody," said longtime Midway resident Irma Anderson. The state and federal agencies have contended that there isn't enough information to link toxins at the site with the residents' health problems. Those who live at the 150-unit complex say they have suffered physical ailments, including respiratory problems, inexplicable rashes, sterility and an increased risk of cancer because of toxins, known as PNAs, at the housing project. Several residents, including recently a 32-year-old man, have died from mysterious causes, residents said. The housing project is next to what was a PG&E gas manufacturing plant in the early 1900s. In the 1970s, the complex was rebuilt, but no tests on the soil were done. In 1990, residents were warned for the first time that the buildings were on contaminated land. Through funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the site was later capped with concrete to mitigate the contamination. But residents were still concerned about health problems. In 1993, a group of residents sued PG&E and the U.S. Navy, which once owned the land, and the San Mateo County Housing Authority, which built Midway in 1976. But the suit was thrown out because the residents failed to show that their health problems were caused by exposure to PNAs. At least one of the cases is still under appeal. The health problems continued, but calls to County, state and federal agencies asking for help have been largely ignored, Bishop said. But movement on the residents' complaints has snowballed since recent coverage in the media, especially recent newspaper reports that most of 58 residents tested had an abnormally high number of defects in their chromosomes. Politicians, including Assemblyman Kevin Shelley, D-San Francisco, and state Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo/San Francisco, recently have held meetings with state and federal toxic regulators and residents. On Tuesday, Supervisor Mike Nevin wrote a letter to HUD asking that the residents be given emergency section 8 housing vouchers. But it still isn't clear when or if the vouchers will be granted. The local HUD office is working on the request and hasn't been able to contact the Washington, D.C., headquarters due to bad weather, said John Phillips, a representative with the San Francisco office of HUD. But Phillips said the agency has been waiting since 1994 for tests that prove the site is still contaminated. The tests would present a better case that the emergency vouchers are necessary, he said. "I think we need to better define the emergency," he said. Federal agencies are urging the state to retest the soil, said William Nelson, Senior Regional Representative for the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Williams said he expected the testing to happen in the next two to three months. But residents say they don't have time for any more tests. "We don't need any more testing, we cannot wait for any more testing," Bishop said. Testing will mean more red tape and delay, said former resident LaDonna Williams. Figuring out how much people are owed in compensation is "the only damn testing they need to do," she said. Residents and their supporters say that the result of the genetic tests should have convinced federal and state regulators to do further tests. Nelson argued that the tests were too sketchy to be conclusive. "The most important thing to remember is that those types of tests won't tell us anything about exposure (to toxins)," Nelson said. Greenaction's Bradley Angel agreed that the tests were sketchy, but that their results should have led the agency to order more tests. Angel said the health surveys will provide a measure of the community's health problems after they have been analyzed by independent physicians. The results would not be given to a federal agency to analyze, Angel and others said. "We don't trust them, for good reason," he said.
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