OAKLAND — Weeks after California filed a lawsuit against a pipe fitting factory thats been flagged by smog regulators for emitting carcinogenic toxins into the air of the East Oakland neighborhood around it, the 116 year-old factory announced it’s shutting down the facility and moving all its operations to Texas.
McWane, Inc. — the parent company of the factory, AB&I Foundry — announced Friday it would start shutting down the foundry in stages and be completely out of East Oakland within a year.
AB&I Foundry has been in operation in Oakland since 1906. It recycles scrap metal and melts it down to make cast iron pipes and fittings for plumbing systems in multi-family apartments and commercial buildings. According to the company, it is currently the largest producer of cast iron soil pipe fittings and pipes in the western United States.
“After much deliberation, we came to the difficult decision that relocation of our operations from Oakland was the only course of action to ensure we can continue to serve our customers with high-quality pipe and pipe fittings,” said AB&I President, Michael Lowe, in a press release Friday. “This decision is especially difficult because of the impact to long-serving and hard-working team members and their families.
“We remain committed to working with our team members and community partners to help our 200 union workers either move with us or to secure new equally well-paying jobs locally,” Lowe added.
This announcement comes after AB&I Foundry executives announced last year that it would relocate about half of its 200 Oakland jobs to Texas. They cited “ever increasing regulatory standards” as the reason for that and hinted that the company was considering a move out of California entirely.
“Changing standards create business uncertainties that make it difficult to continue our operations in California,” Lowe said in March of last year as the company announced the move of the molding operations.
A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to requests to elaborate on the decision now to close the Oakland foundry or whether it was in response to recent lawsuits over the operations’ impact on its environment.
Last month, Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court claiming that AB&I Foundry failed to issue state-required warnings regarding its operation releasing hexavalent chromium in the air. The toxin has been shown to cause lung cancer and other forms of cancer.
The lawsuit claims that AB&I Foundry did not take the necessary steps to reduce its hexavalent chromium omissions. This follows a December challenge filed by Communities for a Better Environment. Communities for a Better Environment similarly accused AB&I Foundry, claiming that it flouted state law which requires it notify the community when the toxins are above a certain threshold.
The foundry is located on San Leandro Street, in densely populated areas near the Oakland Coliseum. It is also within a mile from approximately 10 schools. According to the attorney general’s office, approximately 85% of households in the area live below the poverty line. These are mostly Latino and Black.
Citing a state map tool that helps to identify areas most affected by pollution, attorney generals office discovered that communities near the foundry are more likely to be exposed to high levels of pollution and to have more asthma-related emergency departments visits than any other state census tract.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District published a draft Health Risk Assessment last summer that indicated that AB&I Foundry operates 20 operations at the facility that emit one to more toxic air contaminants.
The assessment’s findings were alarming, finding that the cancer risk to workers at organizations surrounding the facility was four times what the air district considers acceptable. Residents in the area were also warned by the district that the cancer risk was twice the acceptable level.
The plant was exempted from permits that would have regulated it emission-spewing pipes casting machines because the air district’s health risk assessment was the first. The new rules for Oakland’s air district mean that the foundry would likely need to apply for those permits to continue to operate in Oakland. However, this process could take some time.