The independent review panel created to help reform the state’s dysfunctional toxics regulator recommended months ago that the agency review "No Further Action" recommendations that contaminated sites needed no cleanup by a racist senior toxicologist.
Finally, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is doing something to review the determinations made by William Bosan and his sidekick Theo Johnson, a senior geologist, that publicly released emails showed engaged in disparaging and racist comments about the communities they regulated. The emails raised serious questions about whether Bosan’s “No Further Action” recommendations were the result of overt racism or actual scientific inquiry. Terms Bosan and Johnson used in their emails included “crackho hooker” and “Chop Chop Hop Sing” in reference to certain communities and to colleagues.
But in typical fashion, DTSC has not released the list of sites it is reviewing, nor what a “review” entails. Nothing less than retesting in each situation will do, based on a searing letter sent to Senate pro Tempore Kevin de Leon in January 2016 by attorney Anthony Patchett. Patchett made the case that Bosan consistently ignored scientific evidence that dangerous levels of toxics were present in communities and capable of causing severe damage to public health.
“Dr. Bosan has ignored significant environmental contamination and its effects on communities, specifically children, which is illustrated by the attached copy of the transcript of this testimony in my own legal case,” wrote Patchett. “This is not an isolated incident or a mere reasonable difference of opinion. Dr. Bosan has a pattern of ignoring the safety and health of the residents of California. Dr. Bosan has a record of dismissing the need for close assessment of the relationship between toxics in the environment and subsequent harm to the community when evidence of environmental contamination suggests otherwise.”
Among Bosan’s techniques to justify inaction, Patchett wrote that he mixes together samples and averages the results to make it appear that levels of toxics are far lower than what is actually threatening people in specific locations. That deflects any need for cleanup and for enforcement. DTSC routinely employs this technique in other cases, according to insiders.
Patchett’s case involves a Redondo Beach Police Department shooting range. Plaintiffs who attended Towers Elementary School located across the street from the range complained of exposure to lead particles that accumulated on the school’s blacktop, in its sandboxes, in water fountains, and in the grass. Nicole Holmes used to scrape the silvery putty off of the blacktop using coins and then play with it. “I suffered greatly when coming down with a rare kidney disease in the first grade called Nephritis,” she attests. In Patchett's deposition of Bosan, the toxicologist denied a child swallowing a lead fragment could cause any harm.
Patchett’s letter documents numerous other sites making people sick where Bosan determined no action was needed to clean up. Read his letter for the list of cases and the details and weep.
