Stepping Out Stepping In (SOSI) offers inner city youth in West Oakland a quality environmental education experience. SOSI offers field trips, school programs, and programs for adults and adolescents. Please visit their website for additional information.

Stepping Out (1)

Stepping Out (2)

The EPA announced the completion of the South Prescott neighborhood lead cleanup project at the November Community Action Group (CAG) meeting. The neighborhood achieved a remarkable 97% participation rate, which should be a great source of pride for everyone involved. Congratulations to the homeowner and resident participants, the Cypress Mandela Training Center that supplied labor, the EPA’s contractors, the U.S. Coast Guard that supplied health and safety monitoring, the USEPA, and EPA’s project manager Steve Calanog for a highly successful project!

The EPA has started a final sign-up period through the end of September to get the lead cleaned up on the 20 remaining properties that have not yet signed up. There are 150 properties in South Prescott, and only 20 remain that have not signed up. If you know someone who has not signed up, please encourage them to sign up to have the toxic lead in their yard treated. The whole neighborhood, particularly the children, are safer and healthier if everyone works together to get all the properties treated.

The EPA released the “Draft Bench-Scale Treatability Study Work Plan” in April. This document is a plan for conducting a laboratory study to see what methods for treating contaminated groundwater will work at the AMCO site. The community Technical Advisor (TA) has requested that he be authorized to review and comment on this Plan for the CAG during the May – July period. The TA is currently awaiting his May-July Work Authorization before beginning to prepare his Review and Comment document for the CAG. The Draft Treatability Study Work Plan can be accessed by clicking on the link below.

Draft Work Plan for Treatability Study_28MAR12

The EPA released the “Draft AMCO Chemical Superfund Site Technical Memorandum 2010-2011 Groundwater Monitoring Results” toward the end of April. The community Technical Advisor (TA) has begun reviewing this document along with the CPT-MIP report issued earlier. The TA’s Review and Comment could not be completed before his Work Authorization expired on April 30, 2012. The TA will resume preparing review comments for the CAG when his May-July Work Authorization is received. The 2010-2011 Annual Groundwater Report is available by clicking on the link below.

AMCO_GW_2010-2011 Monitoring TM_3-16-12- Text thru Tables

This EPA Technical Memorandum has been released for review by the community Technical Advisor (TA). The TA will include review and comment on this document in the review of the 2011 Annual Groundwater Report.

CPT-MIP Investigation Tech Memo_12-30-11_Draft EPA submittal

On Thursday, March 29 the Pentecostal Way of Truth School put on a performance for the EPA lead cleanup team and its contractors. Videos of the Drum Quintet , Dancers, and the Conclusion were provided to this blog by EQM, one of the EPA’s lead cleanup contractors.

On March 13, 2012 Steve Calanog, the EPA Project Manager for the West Oakland Lead Removal project, and Sophia Serda PhD, EPA Region 9 Toxicologist, gave a presentation on the Fishbone Project to the Society of Toxicology at their San Francisco convention. This West Oakland project has gained national attention as a new method of treating lead-contaminated soil in urban locations. Here are the slides that were included in the EPA presentation:

Toxicology Presentation

Hello CAG,

Lisa Jackson, the EPA Administrator, spoke at the UC Berkeley Law School last week. I thought this video would provide some insight into the current administration’s environmental policies.

Here is EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson on YouTube giving an address on November 4, 2011.

Hello CAG,

I thought this award-winning video would interest folks who are developing sustainable practices.

Transition Toronto on YouTube