Lead contamination in Oakland

[4] High blood levels of lead have been linked to a wide variety of health problems, including severe gastrointestinal, neuromuscular, and neurological symptoms.

[7] This loss of a large number of well-paying blue collar jobs led to a significant decline in the financial situation of many Oaklanders,[7] and most of the closed manufacturing plants did not perform environmental remediation before shutting down, leaving many former industrial areas heavily polluted with lead and other contaminants.

[11] From the 1960s until 1989, bulk chemicals were off-loaded from a rail spur onsite and stored in drums and storage tanks before being transferred to smaller containers for resale.

[17] Both properties were acquired by the City of Oakland in 1976, and, after two actions aimed at removing lead contaminated soil, the park opened to the public in 1978.

[18] These removal actions were ineffective at making the park safe, particularly because the protective dome the city installed had not been maintained or checked and had cracked.

[15] The evaluation also found that residential properties within seven blocks of the park also had significantly elevated levels of lead, in some cases as high as 10,000 ppm.

[15] An additional series of actions were taken by joint local, state, and federal agencies between 1993 and 1996 aimed to remediate the park and surrounding residential properties.

[20] The EPA-led cleanup used ground up bones from pollock to convert elemental lead in the soil to pyromorphite, a compound that is harmless even if it is ingested.

[21] The Cypress Street Viaduct was an unconventional raised two-tiered portion of the Nimitz Freeway that ran through a 1.6 miles (2.6 km) stretch of Oakland, bordering South Prescott.

As part of its earthquake relief efforts, the federal government allocated some $700 million to reconstruct the viaduct, with its route shifted somewhat to the west into another pre-existing neighborhood.