By Riya Bhattacharjee

Environmental activists, community organizers and Berkeley citizens have for years pressured the air district to ask Pacific Steel--located at Second and Gilman streets--to control what they say are odors and toxic emissions harmful to human health.

Carole Marasovic, a spokesperson for the Healthy Air Coalition, said she hoped the lawsuit would force BAAQMD to release the Odor Control Plan to the community. Pacific Steel submitted the plan to the air district in October 2008 after being cited for multiple air-quality violations.

The Oakland-based First Amendment Project, the coalition's lawyers, claim that BAAQMD denied all requests by the Healthy Air Coalition, private citizens and governmental agencies for a copy of the Odor Management Plan on the grounds that it contained trade secrets, and that BAAQMD instead invited Pacific Steel to file a lawsuit against BAAQMD to prevent release of any part of the plan.

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