Re: [CPEO-IRF] Collect buckets before the sky falls

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Submitted by Mary Ratcliff <editor@sfbayview.com>

Yes, base closure can offer opportunities - but they should accrue to
the surrounding neighborhood. And the economic and environmental health
of the surrounding neighborhood testifies to whether base closure is successful.

Yes, the Bay Area economy, fueled by the dot.com boom, did grow at a
remarkable rate despite the base closures. But the neighborhood
surrounding the Hunters Point Shipyard didn't. All that grew was
frustration and alienation among the 10,000 Hunters Point residents who
had worked at the Shipyard and remained unemployed, along with their
children and grandchildren, because of racism.

During World War II, Black people had been recruited in Texas and
Louisiana to come to San Francisco to work in the Shipyard. They put
down roots and bought homes - this neighborhood has the highest rate of
home ownership in San Francisco. 

But as the Shipyard gradually closed, even those whose skills were
transferable or who were retrained found work only sporadically.
Employers in San Francisco don't actually post signs saying "No Blacks
allowed," but they might as well. Blacks are even locked out of the
construction industry.

Meanwhile, since the Shipyard's closure in 1991, the Navy has spent over
$300 million on cleanup, but almost none of the work has been done by
neighborhood residents. And the Shipyard, still a Superfund site,
remains heavily and dangerously contaminated. The neighborhood's
economic and environmental health is disastrous.

That's why we who live here are pushing so hard for residents to play a
major, determining role in Shipyard cleanup and ultimate development.
Right now, our focus is on stopping the imminent development by Lennar,
a huge Florida-based homebuilder, of 1,600 or more new homes on a
Shipyard parcel that remains contaminated. Why expose more families to
our neighborhood's record-breaking rates of asthma, cancer and infant mortality?

The people of Hunters Point came to San Francisco to work at the
Shipyard. And it is work at the Shipyard that can restore our
community's economic and environmental health. We will keep fighting for
that work until we win!

Mary Ratcliff
editor San Francisco Bay View 
www.sfbayview.com 

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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