Brimming with wildlife and providing panoramic views of San Francisco Bay, César Chávez Park welcomes guests who would possibly by no means suspect this stretch of shoreline was constructed atop a municipal landfill.
However beneath the sprawling grasslands and charming climbing trails, decomposing waste continues to generate methane gasoline. That’s why town of Berkeley operates an underground system that collects this flammable gasoline and torches it at a big mechanical flare close to the middle of the park.
Lately, environmental regulators have grown more and more involved that this gear has fallen into disrepair and launched landfill gases. The Bay Space Air High quality Administration District has fined Berkeley after discovering explosive ranges of methane leaking from no less than two cracked gasoline assortment wells within the park. Each have since been repaired.
Because the landfill has skilled energy outages and gear breakdowns, the air district additionally suspects methane is migrating underground towards one other bustling space. The company warns that ignitable ranges of methane have been noticed in shallow soil surrounding a close-by resort and the Berkeley Marina.
“Methane there might explode underneath the precise circumstances comparable to a passerby dropping a lit cigarette on a nonetheless day,” air district legal professional Joel Freid mentioned at a public assembly in February.
But there have been no evacuations or closures in that point, as native officers have insisted there isn’t any public security danger. Berkeley officers and metropolis contractor SCS Engineering additionally contend that the landfill just isn’t the supply of the excessive methane concentrations close to the resort, saying it could possibly be produced naturally.
Within the final yr, Berkeley officers and the air district have sparred over whether or not the landfill-turned-park ought to improve its air pollution controls. The result will hinge on new testing, as state and native regulators have just lately known as on Berkeley to research the supply of the methane and take steps to completely examine its air pollution management system for leaks.
“We’re working intently with regulators to make sure that any errors in operations don’t happen once more,” mentioned Matthai Chakko, a spokesperson for town. “This consists of common testing, sampling and stringent security protocols to make sure the system’s integrity.
“The park continues to be a thriving, secure space for canine walkers, kite fliers and people bringing household for walks.”
Throughout California, ageing landfills have introduced communities with myriad issues, as these websites have struggled to manage flammable methane emissions and poisonous air air pollution. Berkeley Landfill, closed greater than 30 years, highlights the long-lasting well being and security dangers related to landfills, particularly as communities have sought to reuse this land to construct colleges and parkland.
Given the dangers, Dr. David Carpenter, founding father of the Institute for Well being and the Surroundings on the College of Albany, questions why public officers would convert former landfills into public areas in any respect.
“It’s outrageous. It’s like Love Canal yet again,” mentioned Carpenter, referring to the commercial dump in Niagra Falls, N.Y., that was disastrously was a neighborhood within the late Seventies. “It’s land that no person else needs. And it will get used for public functions, like parks and colleges.”
About 1.5 million tons of waste, together with industrial particles from a metal mill, have been dumped over time into the now-decommissioned Berkeley Landfill. Like different municipal dumps, it typically consists of layers of compacted waste and soil that ultimately was sealed with a layer of clay.
Just like oil and gasoline firms, landfill operators drill and assemble a community of deep wells that extract gases produced by decomposing natural waste, comparable to meals scraps. These wells should function lengthy after a web site is closed to stop gases from migrating to undesirable areas.
However in recent times, the air district has change into involved with the situation of the Berkeley landfill’s gear and upkeep. It issued no less than 14 air high quality violations in 2023.
Most notably, in July, air district inspectors smelled a “rotten egg” odor emanating from a gasoline nicely. As they opened the nicely and tried to gauge methane concentrations, their monitoring machine “flamed out,” indicating explosive ranges of methane, in line with Bay Space AQMD air high quality specialist Grace Leung.
Stephen Harquail, a Portland, Ore.-based landfill supervisor for SCS Engineers, positioned a cone on the nicely to mark it, Leung mentioned. However the leaky nicely was not repaired for per week. In the meantime, the air district mentioned, the general public had full entry to the park.
Air district inspectors additionally discovered that duct tape and foil had been used to manage airflow on the landfill flare. And Harquail couldn’t discover 5 of the landfill’s 42 wells, which can have been buried by building or groundskeeping. He instructed the inspectors he has often used a pickax to attempt to unearth them.
“He instructed me it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Leung mentioned at an air district assembly in February. “He doesn’t know the place they’re.”
Harquail didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Since 2019, the gasoline management system, flare system and gasoline wells have gone off-line for durations of hours to a number of days, typically due to energy outages. In that point, soil probes across the close by DoubleTree resort have usually detected methane above 5%, the minimal threshold to ignite. At the least two readings have been greater than 80%. A spokesperson for the resort couldn’t be reached.
Business pure gasoline for heating and cooking is often 85% to 95% methane gasoline.
“That may be a vital concern from a security perspective,” mentioned Seth Shonkoff, director of the Oakland-based nonprofit analysis group PSE Wholesome Vitality. “Until there’s some form of subsurface migration of methane to the floor, you shouldn’t see that degree of that magnitude, ever.”
Shonkoff additionally famous that methane, together with in landfill gasoline, is commonly commingled with different poisonous air contaminants, together with benzene, for which there isn’t any secure degree of publicity.
“The science on landfill gasoline composition is comparatively younger, so there’s rather a lot to be taught,” he mentioned. “However we do know that methane is a solvent, that means that quite a lot of chemical substances could be intermixed and be dissolved into it.”
An individual enjoys a sunny day at César Chávez Park in 2017.
(Michael Macor / San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Pictures)
After greater than 40 years, Martin Nicolaus can nonetheless keep in mind how bleak Berkeley’s shoreline appeared when a human-made peninsula jutting into San Francisco Bay served as town’s municipal dump.
Nicolaus, a longtime Bay Space resident, was shocked by the bottleneck of truck site visitors, the expansive discipline of rancid rubbish and the multitude of pests it attracted.
“There have been simply mobs of rats and gulls shrieking overhead, grabbing no matter it is perhaps edible there,” mentioned Nicolaus, who’s now president of the Chavez Park Conservancy. “It was a full of life scene.”
However shortly after the city-owned landfill was in the end closed in 1990, the grounds underwent a dramatic transformation. Berkeley officers launched into an bold plan to transform the previous waste web site into the present-day park.
The 90 acres of open house developed into a preferred vacation spot, recognized for climbing trails and scenic views. It’s house to an assortment of neighborhood occasions, together with guided walks and an Easter egg hunt. It’s additionally brimming with native grasses, wildflowers and myriad fowl species.
Floor squirrel burrows dot the park grounds, as seen on this picture from a Cal Recycle report denoting one close to the flare station fence.
(CIWMB / Cal Recycle)
One creature that could be making issues worse, although, is floor squirrels. They’ve been burrowing warrens underground throughout the park’s peninsula, together with close to the flare station, heightening issues about potential gasoline leaks and spills of contaminated liquids.
However the metropolis met stiff opposition to trapping or exterminating the rodents.
Nicolaus mentioned the air district statements are alarmist. He has expressed issues over how intensive repairs would possibly disrupt the many years of habitat restoration work.
“Floor squirrel burrows are all around the park,” Nicolaus mentioned. “You couldn’t in all probability discover a sq. 10-yard space within the parkway that doesn’t have a floor squirrel burrow in it. However are they going to chew by a plastic pipe? And, no, I don’t assume so.”
Town has contended that the landfill is producing considerably much less methane since its closure. They are saying it’s not sufficient gasoline to repeatedly function the gasoline assortment system and flare.
The air district, nevertheless, argues that leaky gear is releasing landfill gases into the atmosphere, which is why there’s a lot much less methane being collected.
One other fear is oxygen. Oxygen ranges round 20% — about the identical focus as in Earth’s environment — have been measured deep inside a few of Berkeley’s gasoline wells, indicating a leak or malfunction, in line with the air district. Sometimes landfills attempt to maintain oxygen ranges to lower than 5%, as a result of greater ranges can pace up decomposition, produce warmth and lift the chance of an underground landfill hearth.
Berkeley has been ordered to fly a drone over Chávez Park and neighboring areas to seek for leaks. It has additionally been known as on to conduct an evaluation evaluating the landfill gasoline and the underground methane close to the resort and marina to find out whether or not they’re from the identical supply.
If the gasoline is traced again to the landfill, town shall be required improve its gasoline assortment system. Changing the complete system is predicted to value $2 million. However even when one other supply is accountable for the methane, town should nonetheless discover a solution to abate hazardous circumstances and shield folks visiting the resort and marina.
“If I had the choice to remain or stroll someplace else,” Shonkoff mentioned, “I might in all probability train that choice.”
