As tech companies like Meta and Google expand further into East Palo Alto, a new business district has set its sights on an empty site along Bay Road. Beneath the surface of this site, however, dangerous toxins linger.
Until 2007, one of the most toxic waste facilities in the U.S., the Romic Environmental Technologies Corporation, was located along Bay Road. This hazardous waste processing facility has left its toxic legacy in the soil with metals, pesticides, volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, petroleum byproducts, and Polychlorinated biphenyls, which are currently banned in the U.S. This site is just one of over 50 contaminated sites in EPA. An immediate site cleanup is essential to move forward with the construction of a business district.
The final adopted plan for the business district, released in December last year, proposes a new “main street” along Bay Road that will serve as EPA’s downtown. Bay Road Holdings LLC, the owners of the former Romic site, proposed 1.3 million square feet of offices, retail, and public community spaces.
Currently, cement caps and periodic cleanups have prevented the toxins from spreading to the community. However, an open construction site could spread pollutants into groundwater and air and harm people near the site.
“It’s not a good idea to put housing on sites like this because we don’t think it’d ever be fully cleaned up. They have to clean it to the extent humanly possible. But that doesn’t mean it’s ultimately going to be safe for all purposes,” Director of Greenaction Bradley Angel said.
Once toxins are mobilized, the real danger is that rising groundwater could carry them into underground infrastructures, where they can seep into cracked sewer pipes and eventually move into homes. Because many of these compounds easily evaporate, they could rise through drain systems and enter indoor air, posing long-term health risks like asthma and cancer to EPA.
Those in support of developments argue that continuing with development plans will help speed up the soil cleanup process, however, weak environmental zoning laws allow developers to brush off deeper cleanup efforts in favor of saving money.
“If someone wanted to, they could go in and they could build a huge building on top of Romic, but all the contamination would still be there, and it’s a lot harder to clean up the contamination if there’s a huge $400 million building on top of it,” Cade Cannedy, the program director at EPA-based Climate Resilient Communities, said.
One of the major contaminants found in this land is VOCs. According to a report from 2023, VOC concentrations in this site were measured at approximately 500 parts per million. Short-term exposure to VOCs can lead to lung problems, and in the long term, could lead to cancer.
“They’ve tried to take out some dirt. They’ve tried to inject a bunch of microorganisms that are supposed to eat the contamination. But they’ve been trying different things for 17 years, and it’s still not clean,” Cannedy said.
Youth United for Community Action, a grassroots nonprofit in EPA that played a primary role in the shutdown of the Romic waste facility, has also urged this cleanup.
“This plan is a faulty one,” Filiberto Zaragoza, YUCA Environmental Justice Campaign Organizer, said. This is where the issue of groundwater rise comes into play. We don’t know if it will affect the remediation process, but we do know that if the groundwater table does get high enough, it could start to mobilize those contaminants.” EPA has a history of flooding problems, with eight major floods since 1940, all a result of faulty sewage systems, high tide, and overflow from the San Francisquito Creek.
Groundwater rise creates a pathway for toxins from the soil to mobilize beyond the limits of the original contamination, exposing the pollutants to parts of the city like never before. While the current remediation method at the Romic site is “capping,” a method where contaminated land is covered with concrete as a solution, this approach only addresses surface-level concerns.“The contamination may continue to spread in the groundwater, and by not building on them, it’s not like this problem isn’t going to continue to be a problem, … we just won’t have the resources to address it adequately,” EPA Vice Mayor Mark Dinan said in an interview with The Almanac.
Letting developers deal with the contamination is irresponsible because the primary incentive for many developers is profit, not public safety. Many developers will only clean up the bare minimum, which likely won’t be enough. Considering the serious health problems that the contamination can pose to the community, the city needs to act urgently.
“Why would we be trying to hit the exact amount of cleanup so we don’t spend a single extra dollar than we have to?” Cannedy said. “We should clean it all up and not be too concerned about going too far. It’s only going to be a good thing for the environment and for the people.”
It’s essential that developers are transparent about their plans when presenting them to the community. A new downtown sounds like a good idea until you begin to dive deeper into the history of where it will be constructed.
This situation is a key example of how environmental injustices can negatively impact communities. EPA has historically been a victim of environmental racism, with obvious effects of pollution showing in the asthma rate.
Asthma Rates in the Bay Area
“You have this effect that the likelihood of people of color or lower socioeconomic standing is going to be more exposed to toxic areas like that. I think that’s the bigger story,” AP Environmental Science teacher Lance Powell said.
There’s power in community action. When people come together and advocate for thorough soil remediation, we move closer to truly safe and sustainable environmental progress. It all comes down to putting human health above profit.
