HomeMy WebLinkAbout6/4/2024 Item Public Comment, Schmidt, R. (3)
Richard Schmidt <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Agenda public comment -- city use of thermooplastic
Attachments:council thermoplastic june 1 24 pdf.pdf
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Dear Council, please see attached letter on city's on-going use of thermoplastic street markings. Thanks. Richard Schmidt
1
RE: City’s profligate use of thermoplastic street markings – June 1, 2024
Dear Council,
I have written many times about the city’s profligate use of thermoplastic street markings
rather than something more appropriate for public health and the environment. I’ve also
discussed this with staff. To date nobody shows the least concern.
There are two problems with use of this material.
1. Carbon impacts: up to 8 times that of alternative marking methods. The city does no
environmental or carbon-impact analysis of its public works projects absent a CEQA mandate,
so the city has no grounds on which to say this high carbon impact is justifiable.
2. Introduction of plastic into the environment, where it is getting inside living organisms,
including the smallest creatures in the sea and our own bodies and even our brains, causing
who knows what (at least cancers and Parkinson’s are indicated). Earth’s children are growing
up with this foreign matter in them. Plastic particles are also vehicles for carrying a variety of
harmful chemicals and toxins into our bodies. And plastic in the environment never goes away –
it exists for so long it may as well be forever. So this is a serious public health and
environmental matter that the city shines on because “thermoplastic lasts longer than paint.”
Worst of all, the city uses this material for purposes for which there is no excuse and no need,
like the large “Green Way” graffiti being applied to our city streets, many dozens more being
scheduled for the Anholm bike project alone. (You could tonight order those not to be applied.)
These markings serve no purpose, and their application to pavement should cease. (By contrast,
the New Cuyama Green Way -- who’d have imagined New Cuyama had a green way? – had a
sign during construction explaining where the green way funds came from, and in its finished
state no signage or bragging at all, just some really nice new landscaping and pedestrian ways –
no “Green Way” bragging needed.)
There are numerous ways thermoplastic gets into the environment from its street use,
including these:
• From application mishaps. Some of the material is applied as powder, other types as slurry,
then heated to fuse to pavement. Powder can escape, slurry can slough off. Stuff blows around
in the wind.
• From wear and tear. The stuff breaks down. Where does it break down to? The environment:
runoff into creeks, blow-off into the wind. Pollution wherever it ends up. In nature there is no
“away” to which waste can be thrown.
• From removal by grinding. This produces fine dust, impossible to contain or totally collect.
Vehicular traffic stirs it up, wind blows it around, water carries it away. More pollution.
Here are some photos from my immediate habitat that illustrate some of these problems and
how the city is (not) dealing with the public health harms of this material.
In its wisdom, the city decided to change the double yellow line on Broad as part of Anholm
project to a single dashed line, to permit vehicular passing on a street where cyclists ride with
the traffic. The old lines were ground off in front of my house, and this powder is the result.
Then vehicles drove through the grindings, stirring them up, and having the wind blow them
into the environment. City mythology is all grindings are carefully cleaned up, but this photo is
the reality.
Now you see it. Several weeks ago these thermoplastic double yellow lines appeared, to
demarcate one of the worst-designed ADA crossings in existence, a way for pedestrians to cross
Murray on Broad while walking in the street for a distance greater than the width of Foothill,
and while dealing with four storm drains and sloping pavement that doesn’t meet ADA
guidelines.
Now you don’t see it. Last week the double yellow plastics were ground off and not cleaned
very well. We wait with bated breath for whatever new surprise is to follow.
Detail of previous site. One can see the grindings are poorly cleaned up and much of the plastic
powder remains on the pavement to disperse into the environment.
Same day the double yellow plastics were ground away, new markings for speed humps were
installed, with typical sloppiness and no apparent effort to clean up the loose over-mess, which
was left there to be broken up by tires and dispersed into the environment.
And here’s a closeup of a chunk of thermoplastic residue left by workers. It’s hard plastic. That’s
what the city is grinding up and poisoning people and planet with.
CAN YOU PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS? This is the kind of stuff people expect city
councils to fix.
At the very least, please order staff to cease and desist immediately from installing any more
“Green Way” pavement graffiti.
Thank you. Richard Schmidt