Three years ago, the AB&I metal foundry ceased all operations in East Oakland. After years of community advocacy, the plant’s 200 union jobs were gone. So were its foul-smelling toxic emissions, the subject of a $1.2 million settlement with the State of California, which said the plant had released air contaminants in violation of the law.
The closure of the plant, on San Leandro Street near the Oakland Coliseum, came as a relief to many residents of the East Oakland community. But last year they began to notice something strange going on there.
The years of metal smelting had left contaminants such as arsenic and lead in the hardscape, soil, and groundwater, and the polluted lot was supposed to be undergoing a yearslong remediation process. The property’s new owner, Prologis, had taken over a voluntary agreement between its former owner and Alameda County’s Environmental Health Department to manage the cleanup ahead of future development on the property. But community members were already witnessing new business activities there: tow trucks showing up with broken down, abandoned, and burned-out cars. They soon came to realize the site was being used as a tow yard by a company called Auto Plus Towing…