Toxic Tacos

I received a note from a reader today, let's call him Deep Throat, exposing a very dirty little secret in our neighborhood that's been hiding in broad daylight.

D.T. had lots to say about the landlord who kicked out Kapow in October, but what was most interesting was what he had to say about the business next door, Mastercraft Metal Finishing.

It looks like an abandoned industrial building (Google Streetview), of which South Lake Union has many, but they're still in business. You would think a building in that location right next to so much new construction would be planned for re-development, but there are no such plans—for some very bothersome reasons.

Here's what D.T. dished:

I always liked Kapow but wouldn't go there because of the Mastercraft metal shop next door. Did you know that Mastercraft Metal Finishing located next to the old Kapow space is one of the most toxic businesses in the city and certainly the neighborhood? Just peer inside there one day if you dare and gaze upon the giant vats of acid. Metal finishing is associated with tons of heavy metal leaching and groundwater contamination plus they vent the absolutely toxic gases into the Alcyone right behind it!? The industry is associated with lots of health and respiratory problems, many very severe. I would highly suggest you bring this to the attention of people who would ever dare eat food out of the contiminated food at the Taco Del Mar or live in the Alcyone especially the groundfloor units facing the park. That toxic gas is nauseating. I talked to the guys who run it one day and they laughed that all the fancy Vulcan buildings were built around their little bio-hazard business. Not a single person that works there has the ability to smell anything anymore due to prolonged gas exposure.

At first I thought D.T. may have a grudge against one of the parties mentioned (Taco Del Mar, Vulcan, or Mastercraft itself), but Google backs this guy up 100%. Take this piece on the Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center, for instance. It reads like the Surgeon General's warning on a pack of cigarettes, only about 10 times worse:

Many metal finishing processes generate toxic or hazardous pollutants that can result in direct exposure to employees or to air, land and water.

...

• Chromium and hard chrome plating provide excellent corrosion resistant properties, but chromate is a known human carcinogen and hexavalent chromium is a potent lung carcinogen.
• Lead compounds are generated from lead anodes as well as lead alloys used for plating. The soft tissues that take up lead and can incur damage are the liver, kidneys, brain, and muscle. Children are much more sensitive to lead exposure than adults.
• Cadmium can cause kidney and lung failure and can potentially cause cancer.
• Other common plating metals include nickel, zinc, silver, and copper, each with their own set of environmental and health hazards.
• Cyanide, used in plating baths, is a very fast-acting poison that prevents oxygen use by cells. Dissolution of cyanide into complex forms is also highly toxic to aquatic life.

The reason why the Mastercraft building isn't planned for re-development, and probably never will be: changing uses to, say, a restaurant or retail, would require major environmental cleanup. This would look similar to what's happening at Westlake and Mercer, which currently resembles a war zone.

I don't see any investors taking on that sort of risk / liability to develop this parcel. It will likely be left up to the government to clean up the site. In the meantime, Mastercraft will be finishing metal in a residential neighborhood right next to a park.