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The fire that erupted at Radius Recycling, formerly known as Schnitzer Steel, in West Oakland on Aug. 9 2023 was nothing new. Neither was the alarm of nearby residents as noxious smoke poured into the air, triggering an air quality advisory. The metal recycling facility has been a persistent source of pollution in the past, not to mention community fear and frustration.
What was new, this time, was how quickly federal and state environmental officials arrived on the scene to talk to the community.
Shortly after the fire, the U.S. and California Environmental Protection Agencies deployed a “rapid response task force,” the first of its kind. The two agencies had been working together to find ways to better address urgent environmental hazards in communities historically overburdened by pollution and racism. As the foul-smelling gray smoke spread over Oakland, they saw an opportunity to test out a new process.
The task force’s job was to alert the community about the fire, hear out their concerns, and set up a relationship that might endure after the incident.
The West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a community-based environmental justice nonprofit, has been the task force’s main point of contact, facilitating quarterly meetings with community leaders and other government agencies to answer questions and workshop ideas for long-term solutions. In April, the EPA and CalEPA announced they will use the West Oakland task force as a model for future interventions.
“The day the fire happened, both CalEPA and EPA were like, ‘We need to do a rapid response task force here’ because this is the third fire in three years,” said Amy Miller, the director of the EPA Region 9’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division. “We also recognized we had great community partners in West Oakland who would work with us.
The scrap metal fire also prompted a series of investigations, some ongoing, into the environmental impacts of the fire. The company has since been fined by government regulators for repeated violations.
The fire started in a stockpile of tin and iron that was headed for a metal shredder. For nearly two days, smoke continued to bellow from the scorched yard. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District put out an air quality advisory for the East Bay as winds spread the gray smoke south to San Jose and later, as winds changed, as far north as Vallejo. Residents across Oakland were advised to stay indoors and avoid exposure.
For months following the incident, investigators from a host of organizations, including the EPA, the CalEPA, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, and air quality district, among others, tested the air, water, and soil in and around the facility.
The company was slapped for several violations following the fire. In August 2023, the air district issued three notices. The state and regional water boards issued a notice of violation in October and requested more information about offsite discharging and corrective actions the company was taking. The company responded a month later, according to CalEPA.
The Department of Toxic Substances conducted samples of fire-impacted soil in November, finding “levels of copper, lead, and zinc in excess of hazardous waste thresholds.” This led the department, in conjunction with the state attorney general, to seek further action against the company, a department spokesperson said.
According to the Department of Toxic Substance Control, Radius Recycling did not adequately report the fire and failed to reduce the risk of a fire that would create hazardous waste, which they allege are violations of the state Hazardous Waste Control Law.
These post-fire violations added to the facility’s long history of harming the environment. In 2021, the Portland-based company had to pay a $4.1 million settlement with the California Department of Justice for “the release of toxic air contaminants and hazardous particulates” across West Oakland.
In July 2023, Schnitzer Steel rebranded as Radius Recycling to reflect the company’s “vision, purpose, and impact on the global economy,” according to a release.
Radius Recycling did not respond to an interview request for this story.
A couple of weeks after the fire, Brian Beveridge, co-executive director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, received a message from the EPA and CalEPA asking if his group would like to be their community partner for the task force. The group quickly agreed.
The indicators project has been at the forefront of the environmental justice movement in West Oakland and has monitored the metal recycling facility for a long time. Beveridge said the community is tired of the disturbances they see caused by the company: trucks making noise and blocking streets at night, smoke filling the air, and exhausts from ships, are just some of the grievances he cited. For most of the community’s history with the facility, Beveridge said they’ve wanted them to “get lost.” Now they’ve adopted a new slogan: “Clean up or get out.”
“All you have to do is stop making a nuisance of yourself,” said Beveridge.
The indicators project’s team met with government agencies to draw up a plan for enforcing environmental regulations that are in line with community needs. The groups have met three times since the fire and will meet again this week.
“The task force has been really valuable because you have the federal government and state government convening and bringing lots of different agencies around a single issue,” said Beveridge. “It’s very powerful when communities get a chance to be in a space where they can openly lead the conversation.”
In the eyes of the EPA and the CalEPA, the rapid response task force process is a success, one that they are now using as a model for future events.
Last month, the agencies announced their Environmental Justice Enforcement Action Plan for the coming year, laying out commitments to increase transparency, strengthen community connections, continue the use of rapid response task forces, and increase community engagement in five specific California communities: Los Angeles, Fresno County, Kern County, the Eastern Coachella Valley and the Bayview-Hunters Point community in San Francisco.
Miller said that she and others at the EPA hope to find places to repeat the process.
“When something like this happens that is very serious, we want to be able to respond quickly,” Miller said. “I think this gives us a model, and we want to continuously learn from it.”
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Callie Rhoades covers the environment for The Oaklandside as a 2023-2025 California Local News Fellow. She previously worked as a reporter for Oakland North at Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program. She has also worked as an intern for Estuary News Group, as an assistant producer for the Climate Break podcast, and as an editorial intern for SKI Magazine. Her writing has appeared in Sierra Magazine, Earth Island Journal, and KneeDeep Times, among others. She graduated from The University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2023.
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