SAN FRANCISCO
THE PARTICULATE CITY

If the City and County of San Francisco gathers all the empirical data linked to particulates especially all those particulates spewing from the millions of vehicles using diesel it would do something about the state of affairs linked to San Francisco's air pollution. The particulates further pollute the land and the water but most of all the living beings including humans that inhale the toxic killing stuff. Pollution today serious affects Quality of Life issues all over San Francisco. Three hundred years ago to put things in perspective all the land belonged to the Ohlone. Even two hundred years ago San Francisco had some semblance when it came to ecology and the general state of the land, water and air. At least the Ohlone were in numbers and they could testify first hand the deplorable influence of the strangers. The designs of the White men go hand in hand with blatant greed and continue to this day at City Hall in San Francisco. A hundred years ago the City of San Francisco grew so fast that diseases and Quality of Life issues were ignored. When the 1906 Earthquake announced itself the City of San Francisco experienced two simultaneous catastrophes - first the prolonged tremors the epicenter being off the coast of Daly City and then the ensuing fires that did more damage then the quake. Some say the Army used explosives by Van Ness and made the situation even worse as far as the fire was concerned. A few years after the Earthquake the City Planners did not learn much and buildings continued to be built very rapidly. Thousands of homes in the Avenues have very poor foundations and are mostly built on former Sand Dunes. Many other buildings were built more so to accommodate businesses and residents and very few with the sole attention of addressing any future earthquake with enforced seismic standards. Again greed took over and money was the key factor to live and it did not matter if the air, the water, and the land were adversely impacted. San Francisco even experienced a couple of plagues but it was business as usual. Today over 40 percent of our major facilities do not meet seismic standards. There is always the impending fear when the BIG ONE will come and bring down poor foundations and with them the homes that will come toppling down. But then again there is another type of bombardment that comes from the particulates most too small to detect by the naked eye but powerful enough to kill the young and old and all living beings. In the year 2006 the San Francisco Planning Department has NO Transportation Document. The document demands traffic analysis and the data will reveal to one and all the faulty transport grid and the adverse impacts all over the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco proclaims we are a Transit First City but we have no transportation document from the SF Planning Department. We have a lousy Building Inspection Department and now especially under Amy Lee. The Planning Department has no clue about Seismic Standards and the numerous buildings that have not been notified to bring buildings under quality Seismic Standards. If the BIG ONE struck tomorrow the over 900 miles of sewer pipes and the over 1900 miles of clean water pipes would be totally affected and there would be no water nor sewer operations in place for over 6 months. The Blue Hydrants that Susan Leal thinks will work would be White Elephants. Our Reservoirs would crack and millions of gallons of water would do flood damage and more. The Financial District which relies on its water from the University Mound for example would have not water for years. We have the Office of Emergency Services (OES) under an inept and very arrogant Ann Marie Conroy. The woman simply does not get it - in all the time she has been in office her plans have been dumber then dumb. First she got herself trained at Fort Ord now she pretends she understands logistics when she have no clue how to deal with those in her circle at a team. The OES is not to be trusted and is a JOKE. If we really had a good SF Health Department, an efficacious entity such as the San Francisco Environment, the cooperation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), help from the Bay Area Air Quality Management Department all of them working together to study the adverse impacts of particulates and create a base line to measure very serious adverse impacts on health - we all would have been better of. The reality is that we do not have such an understanding because we do not want to face the facts and address Quality of Life issues. We are indeed a PARTICULATE CITY and not a Green City as Mayor Gavin Newsom brags without having the basic understanding of the environment. It is a joke when Mayor Gavin Newsom talks about San Francisco as a Green City. We clear cut thousands of trees. We encourage 3 Combustion Turbines which will emit PM-2.5. We look the other way when we build bridges such as the Illinois Bridge between Cargo Street and Marin Street. We do not care about the millions of vehicles that ply spewing very dangerous diesel into the air and killing people slowly but surely. For year the City and County of San Francisco shies away from cleaning or abating over 700 toxic hot spots. The City of San Francisco does not have a plan to mitigate large areas polluted with the worse toxins and prefers to cap Brown Fields or Toxic Sites. We have over 400 toxic hot spots in the Southeast Sector. The City and County of San Francisco does not have the ability to address mitigation sites such as the Superfund sites or the over 700 toxic hot spots found all over San Francisco. A glaring example miles and miles of toxic hot spots were just covered up when the MUNI 3rd Street Lightrail was recently built. The proposed site where now sits the Schlage Lock Company and where the City wants to build thousands of homes on very Toxic Land by Visitation Valley. Right now plans are adrift to permit the corrupt San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) to take thousands of acres of land. Once SFRA gets hold of such land it will be the first to cast aside mitigation measures linked to hot spots and cap areas and build homes on toxic hot spots. It has encountered one such case on Parcel A at Hunters Point and is at a loss for words. It was bragging when Parcel A was conveyed but now that it has Parcel A what is it going to do with Chernobyl? San Francisco better be a City that walks the walk and not a City that talks the talk. San Francisco is a very Racist City and we have seen it very recently with the Immigration Issue. Anyway you look at it this land we call California belongs to the First People the Native Americans. We have 18 treaties signed by the United States Government and Native Americans in California that were not kept. The land was stolen and remains stolen. The immigrants have closer ties to the First People and respect for the land ­ I subjectively cannot say that of the majority of Whites that are full of greed and very racists. San Francisco today embraces Particulates and is NOT a Green City. One has just to follow the projects in San Francisco and see how the land, the air, and the water continue to be polluted. It is time we learn to be educated on issues and discern. It is time we have a Bird Eye view of all the important factors and address Quality of Life issues. It is time we shun the Spin and Media hype that takes us no where. As things stand today we embrace PARTICULATES and put our constituents in harms way.

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