Environmental Case Against West Oakland Scrap Yard Is Dropped by New DA

Updated 5:04 p.m.

Environmental justice advocates and former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price are not happy with prosecutors’ decision to drop charges against a West Oakland scrap metal processing plant that caught fire two years ago.

Radius Recycling, formerly Schnitzer Steel, had a history of environmental violations before the 2023 blaze that Price’s office said spewed toxic smoke across the East Bay. The company and two of its managers will no longer face criminal charges and millions of dollars in fines after Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson’s office quietly dismissed the case on Friday, citing a lack of proof for criminal liability.

“This isn’t a question of us standing with polluters — we’re not. But we can only proceed where we can proceed,” said Casey Bates, an assistant district attorney in Jones Dickson’s office.

He said, however, that the decision does not preclude the district attorney from seeking criminal charges against the company and its employees in the future, or from pursuing a civil case against them.

But that comes as cold comfort to advocates who backed the high-profile prosecution that Price launched last year. Calling the action “historic,” Price in July announced a 10-count grand jury indictment against the company for its “terrible legacy of environmental racism and poison in Alameda County that has had a deleterious impact on West Oakland.”

Voters recalled Price several months later, and Jones Dickson was appointed in January by the county Board of Supervisors to complete her term.

Price called her successor’s decision to dismiss the case “outrageous” and disconcerting.

“It was grounded in the evidence and the experience of the residents of West Oakland, of the firefighters who were called to fight this very dangerous and toxic fire and who risked their lives to protect the community,” she said. ”And for the district attorney to step back from enforcing the rights of the people and holding this corporation and its corporate managers accountable is absolutely disgraceful.”

The decision is further evidence that the district attorney’s office is no longer “concerned or accountable to the community,” she noted, suggesting that Jones Dickson was beholden to corporate interests.

Margaret Gordon, who’s lived near the West Oakland facility for three decades and founded the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, accused Jones Dickson’s office of failing to reach out to her community about its decision to dismiss the charges against a company that she said has a long history of air quality violations.

“We should have been informed that she was doing that,” Gordon said. “We should have some kind of communication.”

Environmental justice advocates have long called for the facility to leave Oakland, citing harmful smoke from frequent fires, including large blazes in 2009, 2010, 2018 and 2020.

West Oakland residents, who live near a major highway, the port, and industrial facilities, have some of the highest rates of asthma and other respiratory diseases in the region.

State Assemblymember Mia Bonta, who represents West Oakland and the surrounding areas, decried the district attorney’s decision to drop the case against the company.

“Serial polluters shouldn’t be allowed to fill our lungs with hazardous waste, including lead, and get away with it with nothing more than a slap on the wrist,” Bonta said.

She noted that the company — which is located within a mile of 18 day care centers, 10 parks, eight schools and two hospitals — has been hit with 13 notices of violation from local air regulators since 2018.

“The repeated fires from this facility threaten the well-being of the entire Bay Area, particularly the surrounding community in Oakland,” Bonta said.

Past investigations by the Alameda County district attorney’s office and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control found that the facility released particulate matter contaminated with hazardous metals such as lead, cadmium and zinc. The investigations were cited in a 2021 settlement between Schnitzer and the state Department of Justice over “the release of toxic air contaminants and hazardous particulates” in West Oakland and across the Oakland Estuary.

“The DA’s office had a long history of negotiating settlements with Schnitzer and then not enforcing the settlements,” Price said, noting that Radius was shocked when her office set out to hold the company accountable.

The charges filed last year by Price’s office alleged that Radius Steel as well as Daniel Woltman and Dane Morales, the heads of the West Oakland facility, recklessly managed hazardous materials, elevating the risk of fire, and later destroyed evidence by cleaning up the 40-ton charred “tin pile” before prosecutors could inspect it to help build their case against the company.

The company and the two men were also charged with violating local air quality regulations and state toxic substance control laws.

The charges, which carried a penalty of up to $33 million in criminal fines and up to three years in county jail, were the first ever filed by an Alameda County district attorney for environmental crimes allegedly committed by a corporation, Price said at a press conference in July.

Price’s office first announced the investigation against the Oregon-based company days after the August 2023 blaze at its Oakland facility, which burned for more than 24 hours, shrouding the region in a gray smoky haze.

The fire started in a pile of scrap metal and was likely caused by a lithium battery, according to the Oakland Fire Department, whose crews were unable to reach the source of the blaze for hours due to the sheer size of the pile. County and city officials advised residents near the Port of Oakland to avoid Jack London Square and to keep their windows closed.

The West Oakland facility, which shreds cars and other large appliances, is one of at least four operated by Radius Recycling in California.

The company, which rebranded in 2023, bills itself as one of North America’s largest manufacturers and exporters of recycled metal products, with 100 operations centers and over 50 recycling facilities in the U.S. and Canada.

“From the beginning, we have been confident that a full and fair review of the facts would confirm that our actions were responsible, transparent, and fully compliant with the law,” Eric Potashner, a Radius spokesperson, said in an email to KQED. “We are proud of how our team responded in the aftermath of the 2023 fire—prioritizing safety, collaborating closely with regulators, and maintaining our commitment to environmental responsibility.”

In a statement issued last year after charges were filed, Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Radius, said that the company does not treat or store hazardous waste and that it did not hide or destroy any evidence.

“We are fully confident that the company’s actions will be proven to have prioritized public safety and compliance with the law,” he said.

The company’s attorneys at the time argued that the case was politically motivated because Price was facing a recall election and wanted to secure a high-profile win. They also denied destroying any evidence from the fire, saying that officials were allowed to inspect the debris and collect samples.

Last month, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Scott Patton removed four prosecutors from the case over their ongoing contention that the company had ignored orders not to clean up the burn pile in its alleged effort to destroy evidence.

In his recusal order, Patton dismissed the prosecution’s argument as negligent and “disingenuous,” insisting that they should have done more to “act immediately” to find any evidence of toxic chemicals in the wreckage. Not cleaning up the burn pile for days, he wrote, would have also “created an unacceptable public health hazard.”

Price staunchly defended the team of prosecutors she picked to pursue the charges against Radius.

“These are folks who were trained and experienced in prosecuting this type of case,” Price said. “And they went to the grand jury, which was a collective body of residents of Alameda County, everyday people, looked at that evidence, and they made a decision.”

She called it dumbfounding for the district attorney’s office to argue that it could not meet the burden of proof for criminal liability, and she criticized prosecutors for dismissing the case without attempting to secure a plea deal.

“The investigation of the case and preparation of the case took many months, and then it went to the grand jury, and then the indictment was approved by a judge,” Price said. “And so why they don’t know how to use that evidence is beside me, other than these folks are not really experienced in doing this kind of work.”

The case, she added, was a critical step in working to hold the company accountable.

“I think the danger of allowing corporate criminals to violate environmental laws with impunity is obviously something that undermines public safety for all of us,” she said.

This story includes reporting from KQED’s Sara Hossaini and Annelise Finney.