PC 07/16/99 - Laserfiche WebLink

both of those questions is "no." He reported that are three reasons for that. The first is that Mr. Cehn has indicated that there is very, very little likelihood that there is a present danger from radioactive materials at the Bemal property and that it is unlikely that there is a current health hazard that should compel them to test right now. The second point is that Ms. Holbrough has indicated that the standard, customary practice for timing of intensive environmental investigations for large projects like this (even in large projects with known radioactive hazards of much greater dimensions than those suspected in the Bemal property) is to defer the testing until after the certification of the EIR, to a point when the project is sufficiently defined with specifics related to the exact grading, building locations, and boundaries to enable the testing to have meaning and to directly relate to the health exposure that will exist after the project is built and while the project is being built. He noted that testing done at this time will not create the comfort that the Planning Commission, the Pleasanton community, and San Francisco would need to know that the project is safe. The third point is that Mr. Cehn advises that in the unlikely event that radioactive materials are found on the Bernal property in a quantity that would cause concern and in the event that the Pleasanton community exercises jurisdiction and requires removal of the materials to abate the potential health hazard, that can be done in a safe way. He advised that techniques have been developed to assure the safety of workers and that the people who live in the neighborhood are not exposed. Mr. Lymbum introduced Joel Cehn, a radiation physicist. Mr. Cehn advised that he measures radiation in the environment and makes recommendations on safety and clean-up, if it is required. He noted that he also deals with the work place safety. He advised that he was asked to look at the potential for radioactive contamination at the Bemal property. He advised that he looked at the operations of the Interstate Nuclear Laundry facility which was the only real nuclear facility that fed the sewage treatment plant which was adjacent to the Bemal property. He reviewed those operations for the potential for them to be "handing-off' the radioactivity that they handled to the sewage treatment plant, which would then dispose of it at the Bernal property. He advised that the Nuclear Laundry closed in 1995, and it received laundry from companies and laboratories that used radioactive materials. He advised that when this company received laundry it would check it with Geiger counters to sort it. Highly radioactive materials were placed in a drum for disposal and would not be laundered. The remainder was either dry-cleaned or wet-cleaned, as appropriate. The wet laundry produced wastewater which was then filtered to filter out the solids, the filtered water was placed in a holding tank, and when the tank was filled it was tested. If the test indicated that the water met the water quality requirements for discharge to the sewer, it was discharged. Mr. Cehn advised that his review of the State of California Department of Health records indicated that they always met that, and often met that with by a factor of 100 or 1000 times lower than the water quality discharge limits. He advised that the wastewater went to the sewage treatment plant adjacent to the Bernal property where it was processed with all of the other wastewater the plant received. The process produced a sludge and that sludge was disposed of at several locations on the Bernal property. Mr. Cehn advised that there is a potential for trace amounts of radioactivity to be in the sludge, and there may even be very small amounts, but because the discharges were so small according to the records that were kept, and the discharges were in solutions (there were no "particulates") only a portion of the radioactivity would end up in the residual sludge. He advised that when he measures radioactivity at sites he always finds radioactivity in soil because there is natural radioactive materials in all soil, and he PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES Page 3 July 16, 1999