Open letter to the San Benito County Board of Supervisors:
As you know, the Strada Verde development application is back in front of you. This giant project is still perilously located next to the hazardous chemical facility on Highway 25. Strada Verde’s developers have consistently misled the public and now claim that this grave public health risk will be eliminated by Strada Verde’s recent agreement with TriCal that allows Strada Verde to potentially move TriCal’s bulk blending operation if the project were approved.
That is a totally false claim, again designed to mislead the public.
It is important to remember that for years Strada Verde and its representatives have insisted that TriCal’s facility posed no danger or health risk to the community or their development. Strada Verde is now finally acknowledging this serious hazard.
Under the recently revealed Strada Verde agreement with TriCal, TriCal continues to have the same right to receive and store thousands of cylinders filled with hazardous chemicals at its facility on Highway 25. And, per that same agreement, TriCal retains the absolute right to continue using its facility for the handling and distribution of those hazardous chemicals. TriCal’s relocation of its on-site bulk blending operation will not reduce the potentially lethal quantity of hazardous chemicals held at its facility on Highway 25 to satisfy its customers.
Please stop processing the Strada Verde application. Its location next to the chemical facility on Highway 25 is simply too dangerous.
We must protect our families, children and workers from the risk of accidental exposure to these potentially deadly quantities of hazardous chemicals. No development is worth putting our residents in harm’s way.
Frank Barragan
Hollister
