• KPFA 94.1 FM 6 PM News Report (mp4 file) 4.6MB RADIO
  Pacific Steel Press Conference, August 28, 2007
• Report Claims Pacific Steel Emitted Toxic Chemicals
  SAMEEA KAMAL, Daliy Califorian, February 1, 2008
• Residents to Release Report on Pacific Steel
  Riya Bhattacharjee, Berkeley Daily Planet, January 29, 2008
• Council Considers Whether Pacific Steel Constitutes a ‘Nuisance’
  By Riya Bhattacharjee, Berkeley Daily Planet, February 12, 2008
• Community Air Monitoring of Pacific Steel Casting Company
  Doug Oakley, Media News - Contra Costa Times, April 26, 2007
• West Berkeley Residents Monitor Pacific Steel Emissions
  By Riya Bhattacharjee Berkeley Daily Planet April 24, 2007
• Air advocates test Pacific Steel site. Group attempts to prove plant odor is toxic
  Doug Oakley / East Bay Daily News, April 25, 2007
• Nonprofit’s Data Shows Pollutants Near Foundry
  Robert Balicki, Daily Californian, August 29, 2007
• Group to Announce Results of West Berkeley Air Quality Testing
  Riya Bhattacharjee, Berkeley Daily Planet August 28, 2007
• Berkeley's Pacific Steel foundry emitting toxic metals, group say
  Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle August 29, 200

Report Claims Pacific Steel Emitted Toxic Chemicals
Berkeley, CA

A group of West Berkeley volunteers released results Tuesday of an air quality test which showed hazardous emissions from Pacific Steel Casting, following a similar report by the company a year ago with opposite results.

The foundry is contesting the results of the volunteers, citing research flaws and findings from their own report, which concluded the factory emitted chemicals at or below legal limits.

The residents' report, which conducted air sampling for small particles in 23 locations within a half-mile radius of the steel foundry, was overseen by the San Francisco-based nonprofit Global Community Monitor and completed by the West Berkeley Community Monitoring Project.

"Two-thirds of the locations that we sampled at found toxic, heavy metals that exceeded one or more of the health thresholds that we were comparing them to and more than half of the samples exceeded a health-based screening level," said Denny Larson, executive director of Global Community Monitor.

For seven months, the volunteers collected 64 samples to test for high levels of manganese and nickel, both of which can cause serious health issues, Larson said.

"We employed very sound science in the testing protocols ... and worked closely with the air district staff on site selection and the whole method of collecting samples," he said.

The foundry has contested these results, citing that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, who funded the testing, has not yet approved the results.

Officials from the district said they are working to validate the data.

"The air district considers (the results) to be preliminary," said district spokesperson Karen Schkolnick. "We do have some concerns about the methodology, their calculations of concentration and their use of health-based standards and we've communicated those concerns and questions back to Global Community Monitoring and we're working with them on the data."

According to Larson, project members checked the government's official meteorological wind data daily to conduct the tests.

But the sampling was done by biased individuals that lacked scientific training, said foundry spokesperson Elisabeth Jewel. Also, she said results are based on the World Health Organization standards, which are not applicable to United States' facilities.

"Any results that the (Global Community Monitor) folks come up with cannot be tied exclusively to Pacific Steel Casting," Jewel said. "They are measuring a cocktail of emissions from numerous sources, they moved their monitor around constantly, and the wind direction changes constantly. It's impossible to say what the source is."

But Larson said his group conducted a controlled sample, with monitors to test how much pollution was coming from other potential sources.

The foundry agreed to pay a $150,000 fine and make improvements to their facility when they settled a lawsuit with the air district in 2007.

"Over the last couple of years, Pacific Steel Casting has spent millions upgrading equipment and installing technology and the result of that is odor complaints have plummeted," Jewel said. "What we're doing is working."

In response to public concerns, the foundry also agreed to complete the emissions study.

Residents who participated in the second study are currently compiling a report to present to the city that they hope will result in a meeting to address zoning policies in the area, Larson said.

"Now that we know people have been exposed, its important for the city to recognize its obligation to study the problem," he said. "The city has permitted this company and permitted people to live there and now its time to face the music and see their consequences."

Photos Courtesy Ruth Breech, Global Community Monitor

The West Berkeley Community Monitoring Project will release test results today (Tuesday) for air samples taken near the Second Street-based Pacific Steel Casting to check for toxics.

The release, at the West Berkeley Senior Center, 1900 6th St., 7 p.m., culminates more than six months of testing made possible with help from Global Community Monitor—an environmental justice organization—and grants from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). The event is hosted by Greenaction, Global Community Monitor, West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs and the Ecology Center.

A group of residents got together between April and November and collected 66 air samples at 24 locations near the steel foundry to monitor for particulate matter using portable air samplers recommended by the air district. Control samples identified pollution coming from the freeway and other nearby sources.

According to L A Wood, who participated in the project, the sampler used a calibrated pump to gather particles on filters which were tested for heavy metal pollutants such as lead, manganese, nickel and zinc by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved laboratory.

“It’s quite timely since Pacific Steel’s Health Risk Assessment (HRA) report is being reviewed for public comment until Thursday,” he said. “Our sampling project will undoubtedly give those in West Berkeley real hope that something concrete is being done to actually investigate the air emissions and health concerns generated by Pacific Steel.”

Prepared by Pacific Steel Casting with assistance from the environmental consulting firm ENVIRON, the HRA report examines the effects of both current and future emissions on residents and whether West Berkleyans need to be notified about health risks under air district guidelines. The community project’s air sampling identified Pacific Steel as “the largest point source of a variety of air pollutants of concern.”

“Whatever the outcome of the tests, it’s impossible to tie it to one source,” said Elizabeth Jewel, of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, the public relations firm representing Pacific Steel.

But Denny Larson, a project participant, said: “For years complaints and concerns have focused on odors of gaseous chemicals and not the particulate pollution which can be more reasonably assigned to Pacific Steel and is arguably more hazardous to health as heavy metals can accumulate in the body.”

Although preliminary test results released in August indicated high levels of toxic metals nickel and manganese, Pacific Steel called the findings inconclusive and misleading since the air monitor was not EPA-approved and the results were not verified by the air district.

According to Mark Cherniak, an independent international health expert, the levels of nickel and manganese found in the samples taken near the West Berkeley steel foundry were hundreds of times higher than considered safe by the World Health Organization.

Community members are concerned that the Pacific Steel’s own health risk report identified children at the Duck’s Nest preschool—located a block away—as being most susceptible to risks from airborne hazardous material and subsequent cancer risks.

The city’s Zoning Adjustments Board mandated the foundry’s first Health Risk Assessment in 1991 due to the pre-school’s proximity to it. “Our results are not inconsistent with the HRA,” Wood said. “We all recognize that there is a problem. What we differ on is the level of the problem. We believe that the sampling is indicative of a chronic exposure.”

The Berkeley City Council will decide whether the odors from Pacific Steel Casting should be considered a nuisance during a meeting at the Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, today.
If so, it will refer the matter to the Zoning Adjustments Board for nuisance abatement.

Last week, Pacific Steel workers rallied in front of the West Berkeley-based steel plant, denouncing what they said were efforts by the council to push them out of the city.

More than 100 workers belonging to the GMP Local 164B took Wednesday off from work to protest councilmember Linda Maio’s request to the council to label odors from the plant a nuisance.

The group contended that if the city mandates conditions on the plant’s current permit, it might force the company to shut its Second Street site. Pacific Steel laid off 60 workers, about 9 percent of its workforce, on Friday, claiming that clients were canceling orders due to the uncertainty of the company’s future.

“Councilmember Linda Maio made a mistake by not dealing with Pacific Steel directly before she put the item on the agenda,” Ignacio de la Fuente, president of the GMP Local 164B and president of the Oakland City Council, told the Planet Friday. “The plant’s customers started reacting after she put the item on the agenda to declare it a public nuisance. They said they couldn’t trust the company to deliver their products anymore ... We lost 60 workers today. We are concerned about the loss of jobs we are going to suffer ... We are concerned that the city of Berkeley is even talking about any kind of a condition. This company pays more than a million dollars in taxes to the city. If you lower the hours and say you cannot cater to customers, then it will result in layoffs.”

Maio said she was only interested in Pacific Steel’s outlining a definite plan and timeline to reduce odors.

“The fact of the matter is the city has been on the sidelines while the air district acts with Pacific Steel,” she said. “I put it on the agenda so that the city can have some authority, a way of asserting itself. The definite evidence of continuous odor concerns even after installing a carbon absorption system in Plant 3 shows that not enough is being done.”

Pacific Steel submitted an odor control plan to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in November that has yet to be approved.

“We all know we don’t want to shut the plant down and drive the workers to China,” Maio said. “They are worried about jobs and we are worried about odors. We need to find a middle ground.”

“I am not saying everything is beautiful and great,” De la Fuente said. “But there are ways to improve the environment and reduce emissions. But you can’t do it by endangering the workers.”

Odor complaints from residents resulted in the air district’s independent hearing board enforcing an unconditional odor abatement order on Pacific Steel in 1985. In 1999, the air district removed the abatement.

“There were very few complaints about odor between 1985 and 1999,” said Karen Schkolnick, air district spokesperson. “PSC appealed to the hearing board for the order to be lifted, and since there was a better inspection record, it was. Since then the air district has continued to inspect and enforce odor nuisance complaints.”

The air district has also sued Pacific Steel twice through the larger court system to address violations.

“In the last seven years, Pacific Steel has increased its productions, emissions and odor,” said L A Wood, who tested air samples taken near the foundry as part of the West Berkeley Community Monitoring Project last year. According to the community air test results, high levels of manganese and nickel were found at the Duck’s Nest preschool site, located a block away from the foundry.

Elizabeth Jewel, of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, the public relations firm representing Pacific Steel, told the Planet that it was impossible to tie the outcome of the test to one particular source.

The project, funded by the Bay Area Air Quality Monitoring District, used a calibrated pump for more than six months to gather particles on filters which were tested for heavy metal pollutants such as lead, manganese, nickel and zinc by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved laboratory.

“We will be requesting a dedicated council meeting on the air monitoring and other concerns regarding Pacific Steel,” Wood said. “We will also ask the city to request further air district funding to continue our efforts for air monitoring West Berkeley.”

Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, told the Planet that the test results indicated a threat to public health from Pacific Steel’s toxic emissions.

“High levels of toxic metals were found in the air even after the date that Pacific Steel supposedly installed pollution control equipment,” he said in an e-mail. “This shows that Pacific Steel must do much more to reduce and prevent pollution

 

BERKELEY: Neighbors worry that emissions contain poisonous heavy metals
Doug Oakley, Media News - Contra Costa Times, April 26, 2007

To try to prove that Pacific Steel Casting in Berkeley is showering residents with dangerous heavy metals, a San Francisco group has started monitoring air around the Second Street plant.

Meanwhile, the plant has agreed to change an ingredient in its steel-making process that should reduce pollution coming out of its stacks by 2 tons a year, said Adrienne Bloch, staff attorney at Communities for a Better Environment, which sued the steel foundry in federal court last year over violations of the Clean Air Act.

Bloch said that Pacific Steel agreed to change a binder used in sand that forms castings into which molten metal is poured. When that binder gets hot, it releases a smelly emission that Pacific Steel thinks is to blame for most of its complaints.

Pacific Steel also plans to install a new pollution-control device on one of its older plants that should further reduce emissions, Bloch said. The measures resulted from a settlement of the lawsuit that mandated the plant set up a committee of union members, plant managers and Communities for a Better Environment representatives to talk about how it can reduce pollution. "They are taking the settlement very seriously, but there are a lot of things that still need to be done," Bloch said.

Pacific Steel spokeswoman Elisabeth Jewel declined to comment on either the air-monitoring project or the two measures the plant is taking to reduce pollution.

While the plant applies for permits from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to change its steel-making process, community members now are monitoring the air around the plant through a project funded with a $25,000 air district grant. The equipment and procedures used to monitor the air have the agency's blessing as a credible scientific undertaking, said air district spokeswoman Karen Schkolnick.

On Monday, Global Community Monitor of San Francisco placed a machine atop the home of Berkeley resident Richard Spencer, who lives about four blocks from Pacific Steel, to start taking 24-hour readings.

"We have a long history of complaints related to Pacific Steel," Schkolnick said. "There's been a relationship built over time with the community, and this grant came out of that in addition to the other enforcement and litigation we are pursuing as a comprehensive (pollution-reduction) strategy." She said the district is in the process of installing a permanent air-monitoring device near Pacific Steel but added that it could take years to get it running.

Denny Larson, director of Global Community Monitor, said he wants to use data collected from the air samples to show that Pacific Steel is endangering the health of the community.

"We think Pacific Steel is a serious community health problem in Berkeley, and we want to assign the proper blame to them, which we think is quite large," he said. "We're very dissatisfied with the denial the company is exhibiting on this issue. They are spending a lot of money on public relations rather than cleaning up their act."

He said the air monitoring will be done in 24-hour increments for about four months at eight or 10 other locations in Berkeley. He said he is looking for "marker" metals that he and the air district have identified as specific to Pacific Steel.

Schkolnick said the district will look at the information from the monitoring, but "it's a little premature to say if it will be used for enforcement."

Community Activist L A Wood, who is helping with the monitoring, said the air district is giving the air-monitoring job to a nonprofit group "because it gets (the air district) off the hook. That works for them. Sometimes they have other people do what they can't or won't do."

Spencer, who volunteered the roof of his home for the monitoring device, said he did so because he is worried about his health. He and his son suffer headaches and have trouble sleeping at night, and he thinks the plant's emissions are the reason. The blasts of toxic smell that hit him at different times have driven him to get tested for the presence of heavy metals in his body.

Spencer showed the lab results of a test taken from his hair that showed he is in the 95th percentile for the "potentially toxic elements" of bismuth, cadmium, silver and tin.

"I thought about moving away, but how far do you have to move?" he said. "If I walk around the corner here, immediately I am assailed. The smell comes in blasts, but it is not sustained. The smell suggests toxicity. And the company has been recalcitrant in divulging what those blasts contain."

A group of West Berkeley residents have set up an air monitor to detect emissions from Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) Monday.

Setting up an air monitor has been the goal of community members for a long time. Denny Larson, director of the non-profit Global Community Monitor (GCM)—an organization that promotes environmental justice and human rights for communities—helped acquire funds for the project from the Bay Area Air Quality District (BAAQMD).

He was joined in his effort to install the monitor by environmental activists including Steven Ingraham, L A Wood and Peter Guerrero.

“We are putting it up to verify what is in the air,” said Ingraham, a Berkeley resident who tested the equipment. “The community has a right to know.”

Located at 1333 Second St., PSC produces steel castings that are used in different industries. Area residents have complained for years about noxious odors and emissions which they feel impose a health risk.
Ingraham added that the exact location of the air monitor would not be disclosed because it might be tampered with.

“This is an Airmetrics, Mini-vol monitor. It’s state-of-the-art battery-powered and has an electronic programming model which was recommended by the district,” he told the Planet Monday.

“The grant's collaboration parameters have given Denny information on the use, and some of their staff came by to check out our site this morning. We have a rooftop platform which the unit is mounted into and the program was set to begin catching a sample for lab analysis.”

The group hopes to get definite data over the next six months and carry out surveys of illnesses in West Berkeley that have been linked to long-term exposure to chemicals. They are currently looking for more funding.

In an attempt to prove that Pacific Steel Casting in Berkeley is showering residents with dangerous heavy metals, a San Francisco group has started monitoring air around the Second Street plant.

Meanwhile, the plant has agreed to change an ingredient in its steel-making process that should reduce pollution coming out of its stacks by two tons a year, said Adrienne Bloch, staff attorney at Communities for a Better Environment, which sued the steel foundry in federal court last year over violations of the Clean Air Act.

Bloch said Pacific Steel agreed to change a binder used in sand that forms castings into which molten metal is poured. When that binder gets hot, it releases a smelly emission that Pacific Steel believes is to blame for most of the complaints.

Pacific Steel also plans to install a new pollution control device on one of its older plants that should further reduce emissions, Bloch said. The measures resulted from a settlement of the lawsuit that mandated the plant set up a committee of union members, plant managers and Communities for a Better Environment representatives to talk about how it can reduce pollution.

"They are taking the settlement very seriously, but there are a lot of things that still need to be done," Bloch said.

Pacific Steel spokeswoman Elisabeth Jewel declined to comment on either the air monitoring project or the two measures the plant is taking to reduce pollution.

While the plant applies for permits from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to change its steel-making process, community members are now monitoring the air around the plant through a project funded with a $25,000 air district grant. The equipment and procedures used to monitor the air have the agency's blessing as a credible scientific undertaking, said air district spokeswoman Karen Schkolnick.

On Monday, Global Community Monitor of San Francisco placed a machine atop the home of Berkeley resident Richard Spencer, who lives about four blocks from Pacific Steel, to start taking 24-hour readings.

"We have a long history of complaints related to Pacific Steel," Schkolnick said. "There's been a relationship built over time with the community, and this grant came out of that in addition to the other enforcement and litigation we are pursuing as a comprehensive (pollution reduction) strategy."

Schkolnick said the district is in the process of installing a permanent air monitoring device near Pacific Steel but added that it could take years to get it running.

Denny Larson, director of Global Community Monitor, said he wants to use data collected from the air samples to show that Pacific Steel is endangering the health of the community.

"We think Pacific Steel is a serious community health problem in Berkeley and we want to assign the proper blame to them, which we think is quite large," Larson said. "We're very dissatisfied with the denial the company is exhibiting on this issue. They are spending a lot of money on public relations rather than cleaning up their act."

Larson said the air monitoring will be done in 24-hour increments for about four months at eight or 10 locations in Berkeley. He said he is looking for "marker" metals that he and the air district have identified as specific to Pacific Steel.

Schkolnick said the district will look at the information from the project but "it's a little premature to say if it will be used for enforcement."

Community activist L A Wood, who is helping with the monitoring, said the air district is giving the air monitoring job to a nonprofit "because it gets (the air district) off the hook. That works for them. Sometimes they have other people do what they can't or won't do."

Spencer, who volunteered the roof of his home for the monitoring device, said he did so because he's worried about his health. He and his son suffer headaches and have trouble sleeping at night, and he thinks the plant's smell is the reason. The toxic has driven him to get tested for the presence of heavy metals in his body.

Spencer showed the lab results of a test that showed he is in the 95th percentile for the "potentially toxic elements" of bismuth, cadmium, silver and tin.

"I thought about moving away, but how far do you have to move?" Spencer said. "If I walk around the corner here, immediately I am assailed. The smell comes in blasts, but it is not sustained. The smell suggests toxicity. And the company has been recalcitrant in divulging what those blasts contain."

Air monitors set up by a group of West Berkeley residents in May to detect emissions from Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) reveal high levels of toxic metals nickel and manganese.

The group, which calls itself the Berkeley Community Monitoring Team, is scheduled to present its results at a press conference at a monitoring site on Eighth Street today (Tuesday).

Pacific Steel contends that the test results are inconclusive and misleading.“The results as published by the Berkeley Community Monitoring Team ignore data that does not fit its preconceptions,” a statement issued by PSC said. “The team singles out PSC as the sole source of emissions when air samples tested are cumulative of all sources (including Highway 80) in the industrial neighborhood of West Berkeley. The air monitoring machine is not approved by the EPA, results are not verified by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and the machine has limited capability in detecting small amounts of individual metals.”

Located at 1333 Second St., PSC produces steel castings that are used in various industries. Area residents have complained for years about its noxious odors and emissions which they call a health risk.

“These are preliminary findings but one of the goals is to daylight our monitoring project and encourage other people to stand up on their roofs and put up a monitor,” said L A Wood, who is part of the team. “We went into it with some basic assumptions. Some of the prior sampling by the West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs show traces of formaldehyde and lead and this raised questions in the community. I think our results will seriously challenge Pacific Steel’s Health Risk Assessment Report and urge them to take another look at it.”

Pacific Steel presented its Health Risk Assessment report to the air district last month. The report—which is yet to be released to the public—will help determine whether the steel foundry poses a health risk to Berkeley residents.

Wood added that while the air district had supported their project, Pacific Steel had not cooperated.

“We wanted to know their times of operation but were unable to do so,” he said. “We knew it was primarily at night so we based our sampling on that assumption. One of the main indicators was the smell. Every time you talk about West Berkeley emissions, the city government has pointed to the freeway. But this has more to do with all the industries in West Berkeley than the freeway. There’s a reason why the air district gave us the money for the monitors. They know that something is wrong at the steel foundry.”

The preliminary results from the community air monitor are based on two dozen samples. The final report will be released after 100 air tests have been completed.

“These test results are even more proof that Pacific Steel must immediately stop its pollution that threatens the health of the community,” said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. “The health of residents is more important than corporate profits.”

According to Mark Cherniak, an independent international health expert, the levels of nickel and manganese found in the samples taken near the West Berkeley steel foundry were hundreds of times higher than considered safe by the World Health Organization (WHO).

“The nearest and largest facility known to emit these metals is Pacific Steel,” said Wood.

“At the locations where monitoring found excessive levels of both manganese and nickel, these levels were found in proportions similar to PSC’s known emissions of these metals.”

Cherniak’s analysis stated: “The manganese levels at the 700 block of Gilman Street were four to five times the WHO’s guideline value for this contaminant while nickel levels at this location were 180 to 220 times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s reference concentration for this contaminant.”

Additionally, “Manganese levels at the 600 block of Gilman Street and the 1300 block of 3rd Street were 10 to 20 times the WHO’s guideline value for this contaminant while nickel levels at these locations were up to 330 times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s reference concentration for this contaminant.”

Cherniak also said that all that data from the sampling suggests that PSC was the source of these excessive levels of contaminants.

“By using a mobile monitoring station, we are for the first time getting an idea of the particular pollution coming from Pacific Steel,” Denny Larson, director of the non-profit Global Community Monitor, an organization that promotes environmental justice and human rights for communities, told the Planet.

“So far, complaints have always centered around odor. There has never been a comprehensive study of tiny particles eliminated from the foundry which people can’t smell or see. We want to put some scientifically incredible numbers to these particles so that people know how big of a health risk they can be. We are finally honing in on what is harmful.”

Metals linked to neurological and respiratory problems were detected up to a mile downwind of a West Berkeley steel foundry, according to preliminary data released yesterday by an environmental advocacy group.

The study by Global Community Monitor measured airborne concentrations of manganese, nickel and four other metals around Pacific Steel Casting, a 73-year-old foundry at Gilman and Second streets, using 24 samples from local rooftops. Neighbors and activists have criticized Pacific Steel for two decades for polluting the air and complained that the foundry has moved too slowly in cleaning up its emissions.

“What this data points out is that people who are living there have a very strong likelihood of being exposed to chronic levels of manganese and nickel,” said Mark Chernaik, a scientist at the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, a nonprofit network of environmental lawyers and scientists that analyzed the data. He emphasized that the results are preliminary and merit “a more expansive study.”

Foundry spokesperson Elisabeth Jewel said the company is working to decrease emissions and installed a carbon absorption system in one of its plants last September, among other improvements. An additional filtration system will be installed by the end of the week, she said. “They are the best technology available,” Jewel said.

The study was funded by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which settled a lawsuit over emissions with Pacific Steel in May. The foundry also settled a lawsuit with Communities for a Better Environment in March. Pacific Steel has conducted its own environmental assessment, which Jewel said will be submitted to the Air District in September.

The new data cannot be easily generalized because the samples were focused in downwind areas and were measured during periods of only 24 hours, Chernaik said. Another major limiting factor in the study was the rooftop method of obtaining samples, said Denny Larson, the executive director of Global Community Monitor.

Nonetheless, the study was procedurally sound and was conducted according to standards suggested by the California Environmental Protection Agency, Chernaik said. The preliminary data suggests that the airborne metals are concentrated near the foundry. One sample a block east of San Pablo Avenue and about a mile northwest of the Berkeley campus found very low levels of manganese and no detectable nickel concentration.

According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, exposure to nickel can exacerbate asthma and exposure to manganese can lead to fatigue, worsened short-term memory and other neurological problems. The study also measured levels of lead, zinc, chromium and copper, but data show that those substances were emitted in much smaller amounts than manganese and nickel.

Larson said it is important to expand the study because these airborne metals do not leave the human system after it is absorbed. “It’s not excreted, it’s not sweated out, it doesn’t come out when you go to the bathroom,” he said. “It’s bioaccumulative.”

A final report will be released by the end of September, Larson said.

A Berkeley steel plant continues to spew toxic levels of manganese, nickel and other metals over residential areas of West Berkeley despite the company's recent steps to reduce emissions, a community group said Tuesday.

The Berkeley Community Monitoring Team, using a $25,000 grant from the regional air district, based its conclusions on 22 air samples taken from 12 sites within one-third of a mile of the steel foundry.

Pacific Steel Casting, the nation's third-largest steel foundry and a fixture in West Berkeley for 75 years, agreed earlier this year to install filters on its smokestacks, remove plastic from its scrap supply and take other steps to reduce emissions as part of a settlement of lawsuits filed by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and an Oakland environmental group.

Pacific Steel has reported what chemicals and metals are released in its manufacturing process, but the community's test is the first look at what residents are inhaling, the group said.

According to the group's data, which span a period of three months, Pacific Steel emitted levels of manganese and nickel more than 10 times higher than what is deemed safe by the World Health Organization. Local and state regulatory agencies do not regulate emission of the metals.

Pacific Steel released almost 700 pounds of manganese and 56 pounds of nickel in 2005, according to figures the foundry gave the air district.

Manganese, a metal found in trace amounts in drinking water and many foods, is safe in small amounts. But high levels of manganese can cause slow and clumsy body movements, poor balance, respiratory problems and sexual dysfunction. High levels of nickel can cause chronic bronchitis and lung problems.
A Pacific Steel spokeswoman said the community group's data is inconclusive and misleading because it's impossible to isolate the steel plant's emissions from other pollution sources in the neighborhood, such as Interstate 80, an asphalt factory and other nearby industries. Pacific Steel is at 1421 Second St., near Gilman Street.

"It's very difficult to point the finger solely at Pacific Steel," company spokeswoman Elisabeth Jewel said.

Pacific Steel is working hard to comply with air district pollution standards, she said. The company recently installed a new filter on the smokestack at Plant No. 1, started using a less toxic binder for mixing the steel, and added a new hood on the furnace at Plant No. 3.