It has been months now that the streets have been torn open with toxic dust flying all over the place. It took months for those construction companies with ties to the Mayor to start watering the open trenches and piles of open dirt to stop dust flying around. Even now on a hot summer day the once a day watering does not keep the dust down. All along the 3rd Street corridor businesses are suffering. Some businesses have folded and others cannot take it anymore. MUNI has compensated the business by putting up signs and banners that state the businesses are open, which is true but there are no people to patronize. No one wants to cross the barriers and dirty himself or herself to buy stuff in an environment that is dusty, dirty, and filthy. As I have mentioned before this is a $556 million dollar light rail project. However simultaneously there is a $1.6 billion dollar project where new sewer and clean water pipes are being laid. Then PG&E and the SBC too are laying their infrastructure all in the name of MUNI Light Rail. There are thousands of new and old homes in Colma, Daly City, Brisbane, and Burlingame. It may not come as a surprise to you all that all of the raw sewage generated by these homes comes all the way to the Southeast Bayview Raw Sewage Treatment Plant. The City and County of San Francisco collect the money from these counties and no one knows what the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission does with this cash. Very little information has been given to the public at large about the new sewer and clean water pipes that are meant to accommodate the millions serviced by the SF Public Utilities Commission. This one City agency has not had any detail audit performed in a long, long time. There is so much corruption and done deals floating in this agency that it is not funny. Many of the top jobs are given to people who belong to a certain life style. Within this enclave deals are made and the public is kept out. The sewer and clean water pipe projects do not have an Environmental Impact Study that the PUBLIC can read. In the last month of so the people are so fed up they are talking of closing down the operations on 3rd Street. The people around James Town, the area around Palou, the people from those areas that have heavy concentration waiting at bus stops are fed up with MUNI and the lip service MUNI pays to the constituents who see the redlining coming to their neighborhood. Poor black folk are leaving the City in the thousands and no one seems to care. We have reached a stage where the workers who are working on the projects are asking tough questions? Is it true that we work around toxic soil? You bet you do. Why are we not given instructions how to protect ourselves? We all are asking the same question. What will happen when down the line we workers fall sick? Frankly speaking the City and the crooks do not care about the workers working on this multimillion project. The do care about the money they make. The City and County of San Francisco have a couple of officials who are paid to monitor the MUNI Lightrail Project. Again and again they cannot monitor the work. They are told from people higher up to refrain from penalizing those that break the law. Very little independent soil and air testing is done. The little testing that is done is faked and to date we the public have NOT seen the current data revealed at any of the Public Meetings. There are huge sections that contain Class One Hazardous material that should be scooped and taken away to a legal disposal site. Again and again the contractors defy any Rules and Regulations and bury the toxic soil. What is most disgusting piles and piles of toxic dirt are not watered down and left uncovered. Toxic dirt flies all over the place and adversely impacts those who are prone to respiratory illnesses and other forms of chronic diseases. Serpentine rock is common in the area where Bayshore and Russia House make the MUNI Light Rail and the 101 highway improvements. This rock when crushed is dangerous and the source of diseases linked to asbestos. Again and again I have seen workers working around asbestos dust which will most likely lead to their early death from asbestosis. City officials who have stated this to the enforcing agencies have been told to keep silent. The local District Supervisor is ignorant of these facts. Instead of doing her homework she is busy working on projects that do not help the constituents from her District. She has been towing the line against the constituents and I see her down fall as soon as the current Mayor leaves for good if not early. It is amazing to see the contractors blatantly flout State and Federal rules and regulation linked to Occupational Health and Safety. This is a shame and does not bore well for those advocates who are working hard to maintain some decency and standards in working condition in a very poor neighborhood. It is a shame that others from far off places come all the way to work on the 3rd Street corridor projects. Local workers are kept out and some token jobs are given to crooked agencies that tow the line of the corrupt contractors. These jobs mostly offer young men and women to walk people at cross roads carrying a SLOW sign. This is indeed pathetic and smacks of the worst racism. Human Rights Commission says it can do nothing about this situation. The Mayor and the District Supervisor do not care. So why not call in the Federal Bureau of Investigation? I have no feeling if the crooks go to jail for a long time. I have no feeling if they have to pay huge fines. In the interim the workers and the constituents exposed the toxic dirt are dying a slow death. Businesses are failing and many innocent people are suffering from the unhealthy environment. Crime is on the increase. Shooting and other dangerous crimes occur every day even as the sun rises everyday in the Southeast sector that we call Bayview and Hunters Point. Wake up MUNI Light rail and do the right thing.

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