From: Mark Brest van Kempen [mailto:mbvk@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 9:24 AM
To: fosalbo@oaklandnet.com

Cc: DBrooks@oaklandnet.com; NNadel@oaklandnet.com; MUzegbu@oaklandnet.com;lcestes@oaklandnet.com; aschwarz@oaklandnet.com; khl@rb2.swrcb.ca.gov;friendsof2creeks@yahoogroups.com; nannystu@pacbell.net;lcasey@angnewspapers.com; mjneary@oaklandnet.com; tcaspers@cctimes.com;OfficeoftheMayor@oaklandnet.com; gantenbein@n-h-i.org; chiye@cazuma.com;rgward@oaklandnet.com; dwlau@oaklandnet.com; fssweiss@oaklandnet.com;jean@jeanquan4council.org; cityochang@aol.com

Subject: Mystery discharge 2/7/05

Jun

Thank you for coming out yesterday to investigate the extremely turbid water in Chimes Creek. As I described to you yesterday the Creek quite suddenly turned extremely silty at about 8:00am. The the color of the creek and the level of turbidity was much like the discharge from the site on 1/12/05 when the reading was 345 NTU. When you investigated, Brad (could you email me his last name) apparently witnessed a muddy discharge coming from mountain blvd and implied that that the discharge came from the neighborhood adjacent to the site not the site itself. He even had a sample.

When I looked at the storm drains that drain the neighborhood at about 8:30 there was only a trickle of clean water coming through them with no silt residue, while the storm drain coming off the site had quite a torrent.

But since Im sure Brad is aware of how serious it would be to mislead a City Inspector or misrepresent samples, we must take his report seriously.

If the discharge did not come from the construction site, the only conclusion I can come to after looking at the drainage of the adjacent neighborhood is that someone in the neighborhood has some way to discharge a great deal of extremely silty water into the storm drain. Perhaps a water truck. Since the water matched the color of water from previous discharges from the construction site, perhaps someone is getting water from the site, transporting it and discharging it into their neighborhood.

As far fetched as this sounds I can think of no other explanation if the turbid discharge came from mountain Blvd as Brad suggests.

Perhaps you could look into this?

Thank you as always,

--
Mark Brest van Kempen
3835 Delmont Ave
Oakland CA 94605
510 568 6889