OAKLAND — Calling an open-air dump site filled with charred debris from December’s fatal Ghost Ship fire “a secure facility,” a city spokesman, for the first time, said Oakland is responsible for leaving large, exposed piles of material near the shoreline.
Air quality regulators have launched an investigation into the dump site, which is next to a city soccer field off Oakport Street near San Leandro Bay. The piles contain burned contents from inside the warehouse where 36 people died in a fire on Dec. 2. The materials were trucked to open field in apparent violation of state regulations on the disposal of materials from structures fires, which can contain asbestos and other hazardous substances.
“To allow first responders to do their jobs, we had to move the debris quickly,” Harry Hamilton, a spokesman for City Administrator Sabrina Landreth, wrote in an email. “It was the right decision under the circumstances.”
Hamilton wrote that “Debris was transported to two separate locations” initially by city workers, and a private contractor was brought in to help on Dec. 4. “The site off of Oakport Street is one of the two secure locations,” he wrote.
But the Oakport Street location is far from secure and open to anyone willing to walk about 100 yards from a parking area. A fence has been torn down for weeks and former members of the Ghost Ship art collective have scavenged the site. The other location is where evidence for the criminal investigation of the fire is being kept, sources have said. Hamilton would not divulge its location.
Hamilton’s statement was the first acknowledgement by the city of dumping at the Oakport site, breaking a silence since this news organization first reported it on Feb. 8.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District took air samples at multiple locations within the site shortly after this news organization inquired about the dumping last week, its spokeswoman, Kristine Roselius, said Wednesday.
The debris is a combination of charred wood and scores of items that belonged to members of the art collective — mannequins, musical instruments, furniture, clothes, records, statues, carpets, appliances, and other items. Given the severity of the fire, there are concerns that hazardous materials were mingled with the dumped items, she said.
The investigation could be prolonged, Roselius said. The city may face fines depending on the outcome.
Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan said she sent the city administration questions about the dumping last week, but had not yet received any answers. Kaplan is a member of the air district’s board and plans to bring up the matter at a meeting scheduled for Thursday.
“I’ve asked the (city) administration for answers and who’s in charge of the site, who is overseeing the security for the site,” Kaplan said. “I haven’t yet gotten those answers but I do think they are legitimate questions.”
The Ghost Ship is in Councilmember Noel Gallo’s Fruitvale district, and he has been critical of the city for not shutting down the collective before the fire. He said he didn’t know about the dumping until informed by a reporter, and said he would visit the site and question the administration about it.
“I don’t understand some of the things we did,” he said Tuesday evening.
The dump is at the end of a path that runs alongside the soccer field and about 50 yards from San Leandro Bay. Bogs abut it, and after heavy rains last Friday water from the site could be seen trickling into the wetlands. An East Bay Regional Parks District walking trail passes by the site.
The pollution concerns center on the possibility that the warehouse, built in the 1930s as a milk bottling plant, contained asbestos, Wayne Kino, director of enforcement for the air district, said last week.
According to the state Environmental Protection Agency, structure-fire ash can also contain nickel, cadmium and other chemicals.
