By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission has had an enforcement case against Joe Garske, previous owner of the boat yard at West C Street, since 1992, Brad McCrea, director of regulatory affairs, said Wednesday. The agency replaced that case in 2010 with one against Benicia and current boat yard owner Phil Joy, McCrea said.

Now, he said Wednesday, the debris in the boat yard that has captured the imagination of local artists must go.

“BCDC has always considered this site and the derelict vessels to be one of its most egregious legacy violations,” McCrea said.

In that area are the Red Baron, a pile driver used to construct the Martinez Pier, and a barge with a crane Garske once said was used in the building of the Panama Canal.

McCrea said his agency’s investigative enforcement cases “have resulted in progress towards BCDC’s longstanding goal of having the city remove and dispose of the derelict vessels and marine debris in the bay on the violators’ property.”

Because of that progress, and as part of the effort to resolve the violations, McCrea said BCDC amended Permit No. M2008.006 “to authorize the fill removal.”

Since the vessels in question are no longer floating, but instead act as a barrier preventing wave action from causing damage to watercraft in the boat yard, they’re considered “fill,” he said.

“The original fill removal effort was funded with fill mitigation funds from a separate Caltrans project,” McCrea said.

“We were pleased to learn that CalRecycle also has access to fill removal and abatement funds.”

Those funds, however, are only available in a short window: 75 days. And ultimately, the property owners — Joy and the city — could be responsible for the cost of vessels’ removal, Community Development Director Charlie Knox said Wednesday.

The boats and their removal became an issue this past weekend that galvanized the artists of Benicia and other cities who often use the Red Baron, the crane and other features of the boatyard and the West C Street cove as subjects for painting.

The artists gathered Saturday for a “paint-out” and passed out literature in protest of the possible removal of the vessels.

Knox and Todd Thalhamer, CalRecycle waste management engineer, examined the boat yard Wednesday, walking out on the crane that is on city property at the West C Street right-of-way.

Knox said it’s one thing to view the crane from 600 feet away, a common distance for the painters and their easels.

But he walked up to the crane and got a view that isn’t as picturesque, he said.

“It’s an environmental nightmare,” he said. Close up, “it’s very different.”

He and Thalhamer also talked about technical details of the project to pull the crane and one or more boats from the water.

Thalhamer learned for the first time about the metal recycling project that benefits Benicia’s school crossing guards, a project Joy started after budget cuts had eliminated the guards’ funding.

“That’s a great cause,” Thalhamer told Knox, and indicated the fundraiser might benefit from the removal of the vessels.

As he described the meeting and site inspection, Knox got an email from McCrea. “It has to be removed,” Knox said of the crane as he read the note. Reading further, he added, “All of it.”

Knox said that conclusion jived with his conversation with Thalhamer, who indicated that CalRecycle was interested in funding the cleanup project only if all the debris and vessels were extracted.

The vessels’ removal has worried Joy, who bought the boat yard from Garske in 2005.

He is the latest in a series of owners of the industrial site and boat yard that dates back at least to 1886.

Joy was involved in some of the cleanup before buying the site, he said, and has continued debris removal since his purchase. But he added that the boats and barge act as buffers, protecting watercraft in the boat yard from strong wave action.

He expressed hope that if they’re removed, they’d be replaced with another type of barrier, something Thalhamer said would happen.

Unlike the crane barge, neither the Red Baron or the Spudes, a pile driver used in construction of the Martinez Pier, are in the city’s right-of-way, Knox said.

But BCDC staff has told city staff repeatedly that the boats were illegally placed on purpose, and, like the crane, need to go, Knox said. He said the agency has taken that stand with every phone call from city staff.

However, he stressed that Benicia didn’t initiate the project — “no ifs, ands and buts.

“It was started by Adrienne Klein,” he said. Klein, BCDC enforcement manager, is currently on medical leave, leaving McCrea to address questions about the project.

Knox said every time city staff has spoken to BCDC about the craft, its staff has insisted the vessels must be removed. Had the other agencies decided the boats could stay, he said, “(the city would) have no problem if they remain.”

CalRecycle was brought into the picture by BCDC, Knox said.

Klein told the city it had to remove the Standard Oil barge and its big, yellow crane, and then said, “We have the way to do it” through CalRecycle funding, Knox said.

If CalRecycle doesn’t pick up the tab and other funding couldn’t be found, Benicia could be required to underwrite the cost of the crane’s removal, he said.

He didn’t have prices yet, but rough estimates have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.
Knox said his job will be to provide information to City Manager Brad Kilger and the Benicia City Council on the matter.

This would be the first time CalRecycle, California’s authority on recycling, waste reduction and product reuse, has become involved in the site, Thalhamer said. The agency’s formal name is the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. Its involvement goes beyond water cleanup to multiple other projects designed to reduce waste and conserve resources through recycling.

“CalRecycle has not had any participation in past cleanup in Benicia,” Thalhamer said. “We were originally asked by BCDC to perform a site evaluation to determine if CalRecycle cleanup funds could be used to finish the project the city started back in 2007.”

Benicia, BCDC and CalRecycle met several weeks ago to talk about using money available through the California Environmental Protection Agency and CalRecycle to finish the original removal project, he said.

“CalRecycle does have funding available at this time, but these funds are limited in scope,” Thalhamer said. “The reason this potential cleanup is being accelerated is that these funds expire in about 75 days, and then the city of Benicia project will have to compete with other larger projects already scheduled.

“We are only participating in this cleanup at the request of the city of Benicia and BCDC,” he said. Public notices about the project would be “something for the city of Benicia to address.”

Thalhamer said he had only limited information about debris left behind during Joe Garske’s ownership of the boat yard, which dates back at least to 1958, when he added more boat services to those offered at the industrial site.

“However, he did not run a legitimate business, and abandoned all types of former vessels,” he said.

Based on his own observations as well as the case file on the site, “I have not seen anything that would be considered historic. However, during the cleanup, as long as the debris is not hazardous, we look for significant marine items.”

Thalhamer himself was instrumental in the discovery last year that an old Coast Guard cutter left abandoned in Fisherman’s Cut in the Sacramento River Delta was the site of the second Japanese surrender at the end of World War II.

Though he has called it a chance discovery, it was Thalhamer’s persistence in researching the old vessel that helped determine its place in history.

“As far as the marine debris left over, in my opinion, the debris is toxic to aquatic life and hazardous to humans for a number of reasons,” he said. Thalhamer said he is basing his assessment on CalRecycle’s past cleanups in both the Delta and the San Francisco Bay Area.

He said old marine paints his agency has tested contain heavy metals, man-made polychlorinated biphenys (PCBs) that are toxic compounds that pose health risks to people.

“Past cleanups have detected these metals, and sediments next to the vessels have indicated elevated heavy metals,” he said. “We have also discovered asbestos, radioactive materials, hundreds of gallons of used fuel, household hazardous waste, marine batteries, drug lab waste and other marine-based products.”

Even without taking samples, he said, examination of marine debris can indicate whether there is aquatic toxicity.

“If you do not see marine life attached to the debris, the debris is toxic to marine life. The toxicity is from the application of creosote oils and/or marine paints,” he said.

Creosote is a chemical that results from the distillation of wood or coal tar. It is antiseptic and has been used as a preservative.

“As far as the opportunity to paint the marine debris, I fully support this and believe it is a great idea,” he said, addressing Benicia artists’ dismay that a popular art subject may be altered or removed.

“If we were able to make this short-funding cycle work, we would not start the project until January, so local artists would have plenty of opportunities to paint the landscape.”

But the artists’ concerns aren’t the only factors under consideration, he said.

“While I respect the artists’ opinions and convictions, one has to ask the question, ‘If this debris gets pushed on shore or this material was dumped on city property, would we be even discussing this matter?’

“This marine debris is just that, waste that belongs in a proper disposal facility, not in our water and on Benicia shores.”

Thalhamer also spoke with Sue Wilson, one of the artists who has worried that the agencies are poised to remove a portion of the city’s heritage, and who has been asking BCDC and CalRecycle for information about the project.

“Todd emphasized that he is only there if the city wants him,” Wilson said. “He has other projects.”

Thalhamer told her that to make an informed decision, he would order a rapid assessment of debris and structures. That report will list any found pollutants, but wouldn’t show the quantity of each, he told her.

He assured Wilson that if the vessels are removed, Joy’s boatyard would be protected by a newly erected 250-foot-long sea wall standing between 4 and 8 feet high, depending on the tides, and made of metal sheeting.

After receiving McCrea’s email, Wilson said, “My thoughts are that Brad McCrea, as the director of regulatory affairs, is doing his job. He also told us that BCDC is willing to listen to the community and city government.”

She said she and other artists expect to speak at BCDC’s meeting at 1 p.m. Dec. 6 in the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

“Also, while many of us are artists, most of the ‘artists’ have other careers — Realtors, business consultants, engineers, architects, carpenters, retirees, etc.,” she said. “And we have many non-artists who share our concerns. Most of us ‘artists’ are longtime Benicia residents, and all are concerned citizens.

“The way ‘artists’ have been thrown around in conversations appears sometimes to try to demean our input.”