Hi all,

Update on the San Francisco, CA Mayor and Port Authority proposal to
allow the environmentally criminal Darling International corporation to
expand its noxious factory animal agriculture rendering plant in San
Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, to produce even more hazardous
biodiesel out of toxic factory farm animal parts:

Below is a report from an attendee of the June 25 public meeting on the
plant proposal, and a response from Port representative Richard Berman,
which clearly show that the Mayor and the Port are in full disrespect,
deception and extortion mode to push this plant hard onto the Bayview
Hunters Point (BVHP) neighborhood, which is 40% African American and has
a large low income population.

Here is the June meeting report, and the reply from Berman:

Posted by Kristine Enea kristine@... Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:15 pm

Summary of 6/25 meeting on Darling plant

Hi all, here's a summary of the 6/25 meeting about the Darling biodiesel
plant from a BVHP resident who attended, and a response from Richard
Berman at the Port.

-

Hello everyone,

I am sorry it has taken me so long to post a synopsis of the meeting
that took place on June 25th about Darling's proposal to build a
biodiesel plant at their existing site. There were a lot of "official"
type people there including the Mayor's office, 3 Darling executives, a
rep from a clean air quality management company, etc.... About 25 of
them in total and then the 5 of us fellow residents of BVHP-all of
whom voiced our concerns about this proposed biodiesel plant.

We were heard but our questions were not answered as they simply didn't
have the answers for us. For example, the representative from the clean
air management organization did not know the answer to the question, "Is
the air around a biodiesel plant safe to breathe?" Apparently there
hasn't been any studies on this. They also couldn't answer the question
of what emergency plans would be in place in the event of a spill and
how they would effectively notify residents.

There were a few "officials" who were down right insulting and
condescending in how they spoke to us. I asked them all if they would
live next door to this proposed biodiesel facility and the room fell
dead silent. Then I asked them, "Then help me understand why the
residents of BVHP should live by it?" That question went unanswered as well.

Below I have copy and pasted a email that I received the following day
from Richard Berman of the Port Authority. Please read and let me know
your thoughts.

I am awaiting announcement of when the next meeting will be. Before then
I would like to know what all of you think of this proposed plant. I am
against it. The Port Authority and The Mayor's office contend that this
is good for the neighborhood and the city because it will finally put
provisions in Darling's lease that will make them comply with
controlling odor emissions, etc.....

My response is that as a community we can put enough pressure on them to
be good neighbors, to control that disgusting and daily odor, that we
don't need to simply accept the addition of a biodiesel plant to our
neighborhood. That logic is illogical to me. But what do you think? I
think it's another example of putting something in our neighborhood that
nobody else would want nor accept in their backyard.

Richard Berman <richard.berman@...> wrote:

Dear Community Meeting Attendees,

Thank you all for your attendance and thoughtful participation last
evening. You asked some very important questions, most of which I hope
we were able to answer. I recognize that not all of these questions were
answered as well as they could have been. In particular, your concerns
about air and odor emissions from the Darling plant and their effects on
community health require a more informed response by the Port and the
regulators. We are committed to providing that to you. Additional issues
that we will address are:

- How Darling's connection to the combined sewer system would affect the
SE Plant?

- How we might develop a community notification system similar to what
PG&E did for the power plant, and the Navy did for the Shipyard?

- Disclosure of how many facilities in the 94124 zip code are regulated
by Department of Public Health-Hazardous Materials Unified Program Agency

- Opportunities for public review of Darling's Operations Plan - As I
stated last night, the Port believes this project is a worthwhile one
with several benefits, including the additional improvements to control
emissions from the plant beyond those required by regulation or the
current lease. Even so, we recognize that the types of concerns that you
raised must be addressed, which is why we invited staff from the US EPA
Environmental Justice Program to the meeting and will continue to
request their participation in future meetings. Staff at the Port
recognize the importance of these issues and we heard very clearly the
concerns that were expressed last night.

We will schedule the next meeting for sometime in early July. I look
forward to seeing you there and I also look forward to the opportunity
to present a more informed response to the concerns that were raised
last night. In closing, I want to confirm with you that the Port takes
very seriously these issues and works hard with our neighbors and
tenants to address them.

If you have any questions prior to the next meeting, please feel free to
contact me.

Richard Berman

-

--
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate
themselves." – Che Guevara