Hazardous Materials in the Tube?!

The following is a letter I'm sending to the Alameda Transportation Commission. It contains much information. If you feel the way I do, tell the City Council and the Commissioners.

To:  Alameda City Transportation Commissioners

From: Irma Garcia

Subject: Hazardous materials transported through the Alameda Tube

Dear Transportation Commissioners:

I would like to address at the Alameda Transportation Commission's next meeting an issue that has come to my attention regarding the potential movement of hazardous materials through the Alameda Tubes.  I have spoken to many members of the Alameda Public and have gathered signatures opposing the Anti-Terrorism and Contraband Enforcement Team (A-TCET) station now located in West Alameda . I have become aware that the use of that site by US Customs and Border Patrol (Customs) violates Caltrans prohibition on the movement of hazardous materials through the tubes, and request that the Commission put this item on its next agenda so that I may present information to the Commission relevant to this issue.

As a resident of West Alameda for sixteen years, I have been concerned over hazardous materials in the soil, in the lead paint on buildings on the base, and elsewhere. I was made aware of the situation of a anti-terrorist customs inspection station recently established in Alameda by the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP), an award winning environmental organization in West Oakland.

I found that due to poor planning by the City of Oakland in the redevelopment of Oakland Army Base, the Customs contractor who inspects suspicious containers at the Port of Oakland for terrorist weapons could not get their Customs contract renewed. As a result, that activity, known as A-TCET for Anti-Terrorist and Contraband Enforcement Team, has been entirely shifted to West Alameda. All cargo suspected of containing terrorist weaponry is routed through the Alameda tube and then over to West Alameda at a site off of Willie Stargell Avenue.

To be clear, there are two Customs activities contracted out, CES and A-TCET.  CES stands for Cargo Examination Station and doesn’t involve hazardous materials.  A-TCET is a different contract involving specifically different responsibilities. A-TCET inspections are conducted as a result of concerns that containers at ports are a major weakness in Homeland Security and as such, suspicious cargo must be subject to high scrutiny to ensure public safety.

In a 2006 letter written by Customs to an applicant for an A-TCET site in an existing CES site in Alameda, Customs informed the applicant that it could not approve the activity because of “public safety concerns”  because the potentially hazardous cargo would have to pass through the Alameda tube, and because of the proposed A-TCET station’s distance from the Port (see attached letter).

This new Customs activity currently occurring in West Alameda came with no notification to the City. Of course due to the history of rejection of the use by Customs, neither the company nor Customs wanted to inform anyone that might object. Neither party informed the city or the Alameda public at large of the change.

The movement of hazardous materials through the Alameda Tube is specifically excluded by Caltrans (see attached map). Because enforcement is done by the CHP on an individual incident basis, and because the probability of a report of the movement of hazardous materials through the tube is very low to zero, the only way to ensure that no hazardous materials will move through the tube is to disallow the A-TCET contract altogether. The alternative, to truck suspicious containers the long way around the island to the Park Street Bridge, then down Buena Vista to West Alameda, is a much longer trip and simply results in more citizens of Alameda exposed to possible hazardous materials.

I therefore would like to request that the Alameda Transportation Commission request Customs to cease the A-TCET activity in West Alameda, and to request that Caltrans enforce its exclusion of hazardous materials in the Tube by informing Customs that its contract in West Alameda violates in principle its policy and rule on the exclusion of hazardous materials in the Alameda Tube. When pressed, Customs has admitted that it Cannot Guarantee that no hazardous materials will pass through the tube as a result of the A-TCET activity currently taking place in West Alameda. The only way to drop the risk to zero is to stop the activity altogether.

There are many things that happen that are improbable: that an earthquake would cause a nuclear plant meltdown in Japan; that 19 terrorists would fly planes into the World Trade Center; that an airplane would be turned around and rerouted from Beijing to Antarctica, crashing into the ocean and killing all aboard. How many times are we guaranteed that these things could never happen, yet happen they do, to the detriment of those injured in the disaster, their families and communities.

Imagine that one day a terrorist chemical bomb in a container is trucked to the A-TCET site, something not detected by X-Rays at the Port of Oakland. Now imagine that that truck is involved in a collision in the tube, something that happens regularly. The truck catches fire and the weapon is activated, destroying the tube and killing hundreds trapped inside.

Sounds improbable of course, but Customs will not guarantee in writing that this cannot occur!! Why should this risk, however low, be taken on in Alameda when the activity should be done at the Port, as it was previously! I am asking the Transportation Commission of Alameda to act to protect the citizens of Alameda by disallowing this unnecessary risk that in no way benefits the citizens of Alameda.

Sincerely,

Irma Garcia

A Concerned Resident of Alameda