Increased Cancer and other Health Risks

Multiple tables in UCSF’s Environmental Impact Report show a dramatically increased cancer risk for neighbors of the Parnassus campus during construction from airborne particulate matter, with a reduction to “less than significant” impact with mitigation. There is insufficient evidence to substantiate this reduction based on the strategies given. In a dense residential neighborhood with many families and children and elderly residents, not to mention UCSF staff and patients, many of whom will be exposed to these carcinogens over the cumulative 10-30 year span of this project (not just 5-6 as years specified in the chart) this is unconscionable. In its EIR, UCSF also admits that the project does not meet current state and federal air quality standards. Several Air Quality impacts are identified as “Significant and Unavoidable” even with mitigation strategies. So the operation of the proposed facilities will create significant, ongoing, un-mitigatable, unhealthy air quality in a residential neighborhood which includes families, children, childcare facilities, elder care facilities, and schools - not only for the duration of construction, but essentially, forever.

Comments on UCSF’s EIR called on it to analyze, with relevant data and outcome information, the specific health effect (immediate and long term) of this anticipated breach of air quality standards, including but not limited to: respiratory effects (particularly on vulnerable populations such as elderly residents with COPD, or children with existing asthma, or increased risk of children developing asthma, pregnant women) and also long term effects such as increased cancer risk and neurocognitive and developmental effects, especially for children growing up in this neighborhood who will have a cumulative exposure to unsafe air at critical developmental stages.

UCSF has established itself as an international health leader in identifying and calling attention to the impact of regional air quality on community health. Their own faculty in the departments of environmental health, pulmonology, and pediatrics have contributed meaningfully to research on the effects of air quality and particulate matter on respiratory health including the Children’s Health and Air Pollution Study, the UCSF Human ExposureLaboratory, and even a recent New England Journal article entitled “The Need for a Tighter Particulate-Matter Air-Quality Standard” (August 2020.) It is unconscionable that a leading health care institution would blatantly disregard the substantial and significant health effects of unhealthy air quality on neighbors, nearby eldercare and childcare facilities, its own faculty and staff, and the community it serves, by knowingly and intentionally violating state and federal air quality standards.

 Read the response to UCSF’s EIR by Law Offices of Thomas Lippe