Zusha Elinson

EPA's Deldi Reyes tries to ease tensions between her agency and Bayview residents

Deldi Reyes sat in front of a sparse, but angry group in the basement of St. John's Baptist Church in Bayview-Hunters Point Saturday while the sun shone outside.

Environmental activist Marie Harrison gave Reyes, an official from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, this advice from the get-go: “Don't take it personal.”

Just three days before, the EPA declared that dust kicked up by the massive residential construction project at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is “within acceptable risk levels" for people living and breathing in the area. The dust contains naturally occurring asbestos from the serpentine rock in the soil, and Bayview residents say it causes serious respiratory problems.

Developer Lennar was fined $515,000 in 2008 by state air quality regulators for not doing enough to monitor and mitigate the dust. This time, the EPA said in its report that Lennar has a handle on the problem – and that asbestos and heavy metals aren't at harmful levels.

The Lennar project, which promises 10,500 new homes and a cleanup of the contaminated Naval Shipyard, was approved by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency two weeks ago. The Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on the project June 22.

Reyes, a resolute woman with short greying hair who works in the EPA's environmental justice unit, had come to the Bayview to answer questions as part of a larger event, dubbed the Toxic Triangle Hearings. But the discussions quickly turned to dust, in every sense of the word. Leon Muhammad, dean of the Nation of Islam school in the area, pounded his fist on the table and with great rhetorical flourish questioned the monitors used to sample the asbestos in the air.

“Who's monitoring those who are monitoring and who's monitoring you?” said Muhammad, pointing at Reyes.

On Thursday, upset after hearing the news of the EPA report, Muhammad, Harrison and others went down to look for themselves at the monitor, known as HV8, near the Alice Griffith housing projects, they said. Going through a hole in the fence and onto the Naval Shipyard, they said they found a box – but without any monitor in it, just a snail and some cobwebs. (Later Harrison joked, “This snail has become our first line of defense.”)

When Reyes told those assembled that the monitor was working just fine – and that there had been a reading taken on Friday, the crowd gasped. “What? What? What?” said one woman.

“I dont know what monitor she was reading, but it definitely wasn't HV8,” Harrison said.

Reyes said that everyone should get together and go out and look for the monitor in the near future.

“My suggestion is that we put a team together of people who want to go and we do this,” said Reyes. “My curiosity is certainly piqued.”

“Mine is definitely more than piqued,” answered Harrison.