Economy
There is great news for fishermen and salmon lovers. This year’s projected salmon count in watersheds around the bay is higher than it has been in years. Last year only about 115,000 salmon were counted swimming from the bay up the Sacramento River. This year the projected count is over 800,000.
Last month, the Richmond City Council joined Berkeley and San Francisco in asking local businesses to stop selling certain rat and mouse pesticides that are in pellet form, that are not packaged with bait stations, and that contain the chemicals bodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone, and difenacoum.
The maze of pipes and oil storage tanks at Chevron’s Richmond refinery stretch and wind across 2,900 acres of bayside land. At night, the facility gives off a gentle glow as plumes of steam puff into the skies. The refinery overlooking the city may appear to be serene, but the debate about the refinery, and its annual taxes, are anything but.
A recent report by the United Nations calls for a worldwide tax on soft drinks—exactly like the one Richmond will be voting on this November.
When downtown Richmond’s Metro Walk was first designed, it was billed as a mixed-use development where residents could live just steps from BART and Amtrak, with retail and restaurants right next door. But for years, the Walk’s three retail spaces – 7,000 square feet total – sat empty. Folks waiting for Amtrak had to hike the two long blocks to the Richmond Shopping Center for a snack. Residents said they wished there was somewhere to duck in for a cup of coffee on their way to the train.
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.
A Note From the Editor: The letter contained below was submitted to RichmondConfidential.org by Richmond City Councilman Nat Bates. In the interest of fulfilling our role as a source for information and perspectives for the benefit of Richmond community members, we agreed to publish it. RichmondConfidential.org is always open to written submissions from the community, and its elected leaders, regarding matters of public importance. _______________ I wish to apologize to the citizen of Richmond for my combative behavior with…
North Richmond is unique, and it’s a place with heart. That was the undeniable theme Wednesday night, as about 200 people packed City Council chambers for the premiere of “An Exploration of Our History, North Richmond Part 4,” a documentary produced by filmmaker Doug Harris and more than a dozen young people from the neighborhood. “This film represents the final piece,” Harris told the audience, which brimmed with civic leaders and dozens of community members seen in the film. “I…
Beneath the surface of the San Francisco Bay, a small crew of divers works, largely unnoticed, salvaging shipwrecks and cleaning up oil spills. “If it can be done on the surface, our guys can do it underwater,” said Frank Immel, the marketing manager for Global Diving & Salvage, a marine contractor which specializes in underwater construction and diving services. Immel likes to say that his guys just wear different hard hats and different coveralls to work. His employees, underwater diving…