LA Weekly Not Afraid to Report of These Toxic Towers...

[Guest guest]

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/mtas-toxic-towers-in-van-nuys/19348/

MTA's Toxic Towers in Van Nuys

Metro wants to cram 2,000 renters onto land that faces a Chevron oil plant

By STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 6:29 pm

LESS THAN 72 HOURS BEFORE last Thursday's Metropolitan Transit

Authority board meeting, a proposal to build a vast,

" transit-oriented " luxury-apartment complex sprinkled with 30,000

square feet of shops on a little-used Park & Ride lot in Van Nuys got

yanked from Metro's agenda.

(Click to enlarge)

" It needs more work, " noted County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's press

deputy, Bellman.

The proposal to build more than 500 apartments behind an old Wickes

Furniture store on the former site of the Sepulveda Drive-in Theatre

ran aground when MTA board member Katz objected to the lack of

affordable apartments and tiny parking allowances included by JPI West

developers, the company selected by Metro's Planning and Program

Committee.

Something is amiss, but it might not be the lack of cheap rentals. The

question might be whether anyone in charge has bothered to determine

if the land wedged between Erwin Street and the Orange Line bus right

of way is habitable, and whether the public has been told about

Metro's questionable adaptation of public land.

Under the deal, Metro would lease the Orange Line land to developer

JPI and make a nifty profit by acting as landlord.

Drawings of the dense " luxury " complex show that it is clearly

designed for families with children. Yet it would directly face

Chevron USA's Van Nuys Terminal — a gas-storage, -reprocessing and

-redistribution plant less than 100 yards away. The garden/playground

area envisioned in drawings would sit on land that today has a sign

reading: " Warning. This soil may contain a chemical in concentrations

known to the State of California to cause cancer. "

An official at the South Coast Air Quality Management District who

wishes to remain anonymous because he's slamming another agency told

L.A.Weekly that putting hundreds of renters next to a gas-distribution

center is " a really bad idea. "

So bad, in fact, that it's not even legal. The Park & Ride is zoned

for " public facilities. " Under public-facilities-zoning restrictions,

any development has to conform to the zoning in the single-family

neighborhood of Victory Park, just to the north. Metro can't build

highly concentrated dwellings without a major zone-change battle.

Moreover, this pocket neighborhood would be built almost on top of the

Orange Line Sepulveda Station, where fast-moving buses stop and depart

all day, heralded by a loudspeaker that echoes incessantly throughout

the area: " The Orange Line arrives every four minutes. "

All of these concerns can be overcome, says Moliere, chief of

Metro's Real Property Management and Development division. " It'll have

to go through the environmental cleanup process. " The required

Environmental Impact Report will be financed and written by the

developer — and in Los Angeles, 90 percent of EIRs back their projects.

Yet, Chevron's plant belches emissions and leaches benzene, hexane,

xylene and three other toxic isomers into the water beneath the site

every year, according to a 2-year-old EPA report. In fact, Chevron's

emissions there have been increasing since 1998, and the documents

released by the MTA and JPI West do not propose that the gas terminal

be shuttered in the near future.

Chevron is doing nothing illegal in Van Nuys. This local minifacility

has never been out of compliance.

The nearest neighborhood is Victory Park, a quarter of a mile north,

across Erwin Street and behind an 8-foot separation wall that puts the

leafy neighborhood of homes at a comparatively safe remove from the

Chevron facility. (According to the EPA, the toxicity and

cancer-causing hazards of chemicals emitted at the Van Nuys plant

increase in direct proportion to human proximity to them.)

So far, not a single elected official in Los Angeles has publicly

questioned the wisdom of building housing next to a functioning

gasoline terminal so that Metro can collect $1.5 million to $2.5

million in rent annually.

According to the U.S. EPA, in 2006, the Van Nuys miniplant emitted 153

pounds of benzene, 269 pounds of hexane, 230 pounds of toluene and 158

pounds of xylene into the air. Chevron's own records acknowledge

seepage of 1,200 pounds of toxins annually into the local air and

storm drains.

It's quite a brew: The pollution-watchdog Web site Scorecard.org ranks

benzene as " one of the most hazardous compounds (worst 10%) to

ecosystems and human health. " The U.S. EPA adds that " the increased

incidence of leukemia has been observed in humans occupationally

exposed to benzene. "

According to the Weitz & Luxenberg research center, extended exposure

to toluene can lead to irreversible brain damage. Scorecard also notes

that the cancer-risk scores from Chevron's Van Nuys Terminal increased

168 percent between 1998 and 2002.

In Metro's May 14 memo announcing the selection of developer JPI West,

there is no mention of Chevron's gas facility, or of the hazards to

future apartment dwellers. When reached by phone, JPI West's area vice

president and development partner, Heidi Mather, declined comment,

referring the Weekly to Yamani, of the PR firm Marathon

Communications. Yamani failed to return multiple calls from the Weekly.

MTA commissioner and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky also declined

comment.

Cornejo, aide to City Councilman Tony Cardenas, who represents

the area around the site, blandly expressed opposition, saying the

project includes too many retail outlets, and adding: " They have not

been considerate of the neighborhood. "

Metro's Moliere says his staff had met with neighborhood groups,

including the nearby Victory Park Homeowners' Association, whose

members, Moliere says, were mainly concerned that the project would

create, not relieve, traffic.

But that's not the picture being painted by neighbors. Lydia Mather,

president of the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council, designated by the

city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment to represent the area,

expressed fury that nobody had bothered to notify her council about

the project, or to give its members any chance to weigh in on the

proposed project's expected 2,000 residents and 560 apartment units —

and the gridlock effect they would have on streets.

" And where will the children who live there go to school? " Lydia

Mather asks, pointing out that the local public schools are filled to

capacity.

All of this points to the question of how the MTA came to be a partner

in the land-development business, when its mandate is to help move

people around. For one answer, look no further than Metro's Draft 2008

Long Range Transportation Plan, outlining the agency's strategies

through 2033.

" As a County, " the document reads, " we must advocate for and implement

incentives and disincentives to encourage alternatives to driving

alone, including " smart growth " and " transit-oriented development. "

Metro board member Katz hopes that, over time, the renters of

apartments built on the Park & Ride lot " will adapt to using the

Orange Line " right next door, and will get out of their cars — the

dream of transit-oriented-development advocates.

But even if residents can be coaxed from their cars, what will they

use? The wildly successful Orange Line is fast approaching its

capacity of about 30,720 riders per weekday. Moliere suggests the

purchase of larger buses.

Van Nuys Neighborhood Council president Lydia Mather is outraged,

saying, " Words cannot express how upset my neighbors are that MTA has

gone way under the radar " with its planned Sepulveda Park & Ride

housing project.

Council president Mather vows to reach out to the communities east of

Sepulveda Boulevard and to " hit the ground running with an army of

opposition " to Metro's plans. She insists that she and her council are

not opposed to development, " but development needs to be balanced.

This is just greed. These people were elected to office. How dare they

destroy people's lives with this nonsense? "

The proposed project, so hastily pulled off the agenda a few days ago

because of the " affordable housing " concern, is next scheduled for

discussion at Metro's September general meeting.

[Guest guest]

They also ran my letter. But they did not run Carl's or Melinda's or make

appropriate corrections to so many false statements and false impressions in

that article.

_http://www.laweekly.com/news/letters/kramer-versus-weekly-molding-the-news/19

333/_

(http://www.laweekly.com/news/letters/kramer-versus-weekly-molding-the-news/1933\

3/)

Kramer Versus Weekly: Molding the News?

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 1:30 pm

Moldering Issues

After a week providing documentation to L.A. Weekly of the false innuendos

and misquotes within Heimpel’s article, “The Toxic Mold Rush:

California Mom Helps Fuel an Obsession†[July 25-31, 2008], the paper’s

proposed

fluff corrections [see “For the Recordâ€] indicate that L.A. Weekly is not

intending to make forthright revisions to an article that is nothing short of a

sensationalist hit piece. The undeserved humiliation I have suffered by being

labeled a fat-fingered gadfly with saggy skin, stinky dogs, a filthy house and

a trailer in my front yard, while wearing bright-red lipstick as I

obsessively blog lies from my dark hovel, will remain eternally available for

all to

see via the Internet.

However, contrary to now-popular belief, I do venture into the sunlight. I

have traveled extensively in the past four years, even renting an apartment in

D.C., where I moderated a U.S. Senate staff briefing over the mold issue. I

am not an alarmist “queen of mold†who shouts “toxic, dangerous, a

killer!â€

as I was falsely quoted as saying. I am not single-handedly responsible for

mold litigation across the U.S. I do not even own a “trailer.†I own a

motor

home. I hate bright-red lipstick.

But more importantly, I have worked diligently to remove “courtroom scienceâ€

from the mold issue. There are several old tobacco scientists running this

game. I have been published in medical journals about the conflicts of

interest that need to go. Mr. Heimpel was made aware of this. The letter of

“apologyâ€

referred to in the article that I refused to sign contained the sentence, “

To my knowledge, their testimony and advice are based on their expertise and

objective understanding of the underlying scientific data.†In other words,

they wanted me to commit perjury and lie about what I know of the “scienceâ€

they promote in the courtroom. But this statement contradicts what many have

told the Congressional Government Reform Committee and the Federal GAO,

including myself.

In the future, Mr. Heimpel, if you have a preconceived idea that differs from

others on a subject you know little about, you should walk a mile in their

shoes before you write. You had your story written before I spoke the first

word. You were sucked in by old tobacco scientists’ veils of decency. You did

not research the issue and even failed to mention the Wall Street Journal

article by veteran investigative reporter Armstrong, even after [you

spoke]

with him. He wrote a front-page exposé of the same deceit I fight against

over the mold issue.

I extend my apologies to all the families harmed by the misinformation of

this article. I wish I had just given Mr. Heimpel my shoes and asked him to walk

at least a mile away.

Mrs. Sharon Kramer

Many comments on all sides of the mold issue are attached to _ Heimpel’

s story_

(http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/the-toxic-mold-rush-california-mom-helps-fuel\

-an-obsession/19301/) .

I see someone just commented this:

" I don't know a lot about the mold, but after reading Mrs. Kramer's rebuttal

and some of the facts Mr.Heimpel left out of his article, it makes one

question who paid the author and LA Weekly to write this story. "

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