Amid ‘nightmare’ budget cuts, EPA closing its Richmond lab

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is closing its Region 9 lab in Richmond, consolidating some of the lab's services and moving others out of California. Critics say the move will cripple the agency's ability to conduct testing and analysis in the region.

With “nightmare” budget cuts on the legislative slate, the EPA is closing its Region 9 lab in Richmond, where scientists perform everything from monitoring drinking water to watching over some of the worst toxic waste sites on the West Coast. It will be consolidating some of the lab’s services and moving others out of California.

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MAP: An overview of every toxic, contaminated site in Richmond

Over the decades, a sprawling network of shuttered chemical plants and oil refineries has left harmful pollutants in Richmond’s air, water, and soil. According to data collected by the California Department of Toxic Substance Control, the city is home to more than a hundred hazardous waste sites, including two highly contaminated, federally designated Superfund locations.…

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EPA says it’s premature to discuss prosecuting Chevron

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says investigations into Chevron’s August 7 fire in Richmond will take at least a year, and it’s premature to discuss prosecution or fines. At an August 27 public briefing on the investigations, Dan Meer, the assistant director of the EPA’s Region 9 Superfund Division, said the EPA would prosecute to the…

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Dangerous levels of DDT pollution in the Richmond Harbor

The Lauritzen Channel has more DDT in it than before the 1996 cleanup, and some fish are turning up with DDT levels in their tissues hundreds of times higher than their counterparts in the rest of the San Francisco Bay. It took one company less than two decades to create a chemical mess in the Lauritzen Channel that will take almost half a century to identify and clean.

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Richmond to host major meeting on environmental justice

Richmond will host a major meeting on environmental justice Thursday, with representatives from nearly a dozen federal agencies. (Image courtesy of City of Richmond Environmental Initiatives.)

Richmond will host a major public meeting on environmental justice and job creation Thursday, with representatives from nearly a dozen federal agencies as well as local officials, social-service providers and environmental and business groups. Representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the departments of Justice,…

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