PHOTO #1: Hunters Point Shipyard 'Danger Keep Out' sign.jpg

CAPTION #1: This sign at the Hunters Point Shipyard says: “Hunters Point Shipyard, Danger – Keep Out, Superfund Site Cleanup, Soil Contamination Could Be Hazardous To Your Health.”

PHOTO #2: Hunters Point Shipyard 'Radiological Controlled Area' sign.jpg

CAPTION #2: This sign at the Hunters Point Shipyard says: “CAUTION, Radiological Controlled Area, Radiation Awareness Training Required for Entry, Contact TEICI for Access Requirements, (415) 671-1990.”

“About six weeks after the school year began, I developed a sore throat, hoarseness and respiratory problems. Some days I had difficulty talking. My health deteriorated. A physician told me my work environment was making me ill. I eventually resigned my job as a teacher. I felt very alone.” – Norma L. Miller, Ed.D., editor, “The Healthy School Handbook”

Did you know that buildings can get “sick” just like people and that sick buildings can pass their “illness” on to innocent and unsuspecting occupants like an infectious disease or contagious outbreak? In 1995 the National Education Association of the United States published a handbook written by experts on the causes and treatment of sick school building syndrome. It was edited by Dr. Norma Miller, a teacher who developed severe health problems while working in a sick school building.

In Bayview Hunters Point, sick buildings, including schools, housing projects and post offices are very common – so common that little focus is directed to who can be held responsible when people become sick or die while living in, working in or attending school in a government building. Toxic mold and mildew and elevated levels of volatile organic compounds have been documented in tenant complexes and schools in southeast San Francisco.

Children attending schools adjacent to the Mirant and Hunters Point power plants exhibit high incidences of asthma, allergy and hypersensitivity reactions. A Chronicle newspaper investigation identified a cluster of infants who died before their first birthday in the radiation contaminated South Basin region of the Hunters Point Shipyard. Most lived in the Alice Griffith housing projects.

The advent of methods for detecting toxic substances in the human body combined with environmental tests like air monitoring and soil testing brings new power to conquering the sick building syndrome and other environmental hazards in and around schools. San Francisco State University chemistry professor Dr. Peter Palmer and community scientist Ray Tompkins conducted air monitoring tests at the George Washington Carver Academic Elementary School in Bayview Hunters Point and found concentrations of cancer causing benzene in indoor air at a school where up to 25 percent of students exhibited asthma symptoms.

Tompkins and I worked with Dr. Kim Hooper of the state of California toxic laboratory in Berkeley to develop research proposals to detect benzene metabolites in the urine of children attending schools in Bayview with high benzene levels in indoor air and to detect persistent organic pollutants in breast milk of nursing mothers in Hunters Point.

Buildings do not have to be old to be sick. In the summer of 1992 a neighborhood school underwent major renovation that included indoor reconstruction, the installation of carpets, replacement of roof insulation, painting, staining and masonry repair. Fresh carpet that was extremely odorous was installed within days of its manufacture. The glue used to secure it to the floor was known to be neurotoxic or damaging to the human nervous system.

In addition, just after the school opened, pesticides were sprayed in the kitchen to control ants. The roof insulation included a known toxin isocyanate. Particles of the insulation drifted through the air and landed on the hair and clothing of the children and teachers in the school.

About two weeks after school began, there was a sudden rash of medical symptoms in both teachers and students. By early October about 44 percent of teachers had complaints and, by the end of the month, 82 percent of teachers reported symptoms that included headaches, fatigue, depression, moodiness, anger, confusion, excessive talking, inattentiveness, nervousness, numbness and tingling of face, hands and arms, hyperactivity, wild unrestrained behavior and increased sensitivity to light, odors or sound. Other medical problems included chest congestion or asthma, sneezing, nose rubbing, nose bleeds or nose irritation, irritation or burning of the eyes, skin rashes and prickly sensations, throat tightness, burning or hoarseness, muscle aches and intestinal symptoms like abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.

Is your school sick? The typical “ailments” of sick school buildings are easily identified and can frequently be detected with indoor air monitoring and environmental testing. Children and teachers report the onset or worsening of symptoms while they are in the sick building. Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing may improve when they are outside the building during recess or by the time they get home from school.

The driving consideration in designating a school or government building as the source of a sick building syndrome is the health of students, teachers and support personnel. If a school administration or district is made aware of illness triggered by the school building, the immediate consideration must be restoration of health to students, teachers, and administrative and support staff.

According to Doris Rapp, M.D., an internationally recognized authority on environmental medicine, the ultimate responsibility rests with the district school board who, legally, can be made to pay for the diagnosis and treatment of sick students and teachers if the school can be proven to be the source of the illness. “To achieve the goal of ideal health, action that is appropriate, decisive and forthright must be taken as soon as school officials are aware of the existence of the potentially unhealthy situation. Appropriate action means not only the satisfactory resolution of air quality problems, but also a sincere attempt to ensure the highest possible air quality standards in the future.”

Children are more susceptible to environmental hazards than adults for many reasons. Recent studies document toxins in the umbilical cord blood of infants born to mothers with a high total body pollutant load. Poor nutrition and an immature immune system make young children more vulnerable to toxic exposures.

It is well known that alcoholic or drug addicted mothers produce babies already carrying a toxic load and prone to disease. Excess toxic load depletes nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and amino acids and increases susceptibility to disease, learning disability and poor brain function. Children in modern schools may spend up to eight hours a day in “cave like” classrooms that have no windows and poor ventilation. Computer labs expose students to electromagnetic fields, ozone emissions and toxic dust from laser printers.

Children have little control over contaminated living quarters or schools but often know what environmental hazards harm them. Adults often ignore children’s complaints about cigarette smoke, fumes from stoves, newly installed carpets, pesticide sprays or idling diesel buses.

A letter written on Dec. 16, 2006, by National Minister of Health and Human Services for the Nation of Islam Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad comments on the critical situation that has unfolded at the University of Islam on Kiska Road adjacent to Lennar Corp.’s construction site at Parcel A of the Hunters Point Shipyard. The Shipyard is a federal Superfund site and as such is listed on the National Priorities List as one of the nation’s most contaminated properties.

Dr. Muhammad writes: “I was made aware of the fact that over the last year or more a construction project under way on a parcel of land next to the University is a contaminated site and that the dust stirred up during the construction process was not properly contained as per government regulations. This has unfortunately produced a potential long term threat to the health and well-being of more than 100 staff and students who attend the university on that site as well as the surrounding community. My understanding is that for more than a year large amounts of dust were blown from the construction site to the university campus interfering with school activities and forcing the children to stay in-doors to avoid the thick dust that settled everywhere, including on the clothing of the students and the interior surfaces of the school. In addition, there have been a number of students who have exhibited symptoms possibly related to exposure to toxic dust.”

The Redevelopment Commission decision last month to release workers to return to the Lennar construction site was largely predicated on a Health Department memorandum by Dr. Mitch Katz who, reportedly, determined that the workers had not been harmed by documented repeated exposures to asbestos and other airborne toxins present on Parcel A, including arsenic, lead, particulates and fibrogenic dusts.

The cruel reality is that most toxic dust syndromes cannot be detected in the human body and may not show up on chest xray for at least five years, despite the presence of physiological changes in human tissues and clear symptoms of exposure. If a toxin is detected in the environment and health effects are documented among an exposed population, the medical community must adopt the fundamental tenet, “Primum non nocere,” “to do no further harm.”

I would like to summarize the important airborne toxins that must be considered in an exposure to dust at a known contaminated construction site. Dusts are responsible for a huge cross section of acute and chronic pulmonary diseases. Pneumoconioses develop from the deposition of dust particles in the lung.

Organic dust toxic syndrome is a respiratory illness with fever caused by exposure to organic dust from mold, hay, plant dusts or animal danders. Organic dusts produce reversible airway disease like occupational asthma and both acute and chronic allergic disease. Symptoms of organic dust toxic syndrome may include chills, malaise, myalgia, a dry cough, dyspnea, headache and nausea after a heavy organic dust exposure.

Fibrogenic dusts cause asbestosis and pulmonary and peritoneal cancer. Fibrogenic dusts include exposures to asbestos, silica and diatomaceous earth. Silicosis results from the inhalation of crystalline or free silica. Workers at risk include sandblasters, miners, tunnelers and quarry and foundry workers. Like asbestos-related disease, findings on chest xray from silicosis may not appear for five to 20 years following exposure.

Parcel A of the Hunters Point Shipyard was transferred with deed restrictions against lead-based paint in buildings and with residual lead in soil that was present in concentrations exceeding EPA standards for cleanup. Residual lead in soil was the major issue of contention between the Navy and the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the Department of Toxic Substances Control beginning in 1997 that held up the transfer of Parcel A for residential development.

Any dust generated at the Hunters Point Shipyard must be presumed to contain lead. Lennar’s air monitoring plan does not monitor for lead, and the U.S. Navy has stated publicly that it will not monitor for lead in its cleanup operations on Parcel E where a park has been proposed that will expose children to lead and radionuclides present in soil in alarming concentrations.

The most dangerous elements of dust exposure are mineral dusts and particles called fine particulates that are small enough to bypass the nose and pharynx and are deposited in the air exchanging regions of the lung where they cause pulmonary fibrosis and obstructive and restrictive lung changes. Fine particulates have been proven to immediately precipitate asthma attacks and heart attacks and to increase hospitalization rates for asthma, heart attacks and congestive heart failure.

Fine particiculates generated by construction and industry in Bayview Hunters Point are the most likely contributors to the exceedingly high incidence of hospitalizations from asthma and cardiopulmonary diseases seen in the 94124 zip code.

Contact Bay View Health and Environmental Science Editor Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai at (415) 835-4763 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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