Environment
It will be quite some time before any new homes are built in Keller Beach. Since January 2022, property owners in the small Point Richmond neighborhood have been barred from obtaining building permits, owing to a city moratorium on new connections to the Keller Beach Sanitary Sewer, which stretches for just over a mile along the area’s coastline. City officials tagged the line in November 2021, according to records, because of “severe internal corrosion” and sand deposits in portions of…
City shares millions in climate grant money with local nonprofits, including one marked ‘delinquent’
Richmond has received a $35 million state grant for climate-related projects that will be put to use by the city and local organizations, including one whose nonprofit status is in jeopardy. This month, the City Council unanimously approved contracts with the five groups that will share the Transformative Climate Communities grant. Councilmember Doria Robinson was absent for the vote. She is executive director of Urban Tilth, which will control 30% of the grant money and, as of Monday, was listed…
Dozens of people interested in learning more about electric vehicles, ride share programs, and other ways to reduce their carbon footprints gathered at Richmond Civic Center Plaza Thursday for the ninth “Drive Electric” event. Part of National Drive Electric Week, the event raises awareness about electric vehicles as an option. Volunteers set up booths to interact with passersby during lunch time. Some learned about electric car and bike rebate programs from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Metropolitan…
Zeneca Inc. will begin a series of “groundwater injections” next month at the controversial Campus Bay project site in South Richmond, setting off a nine-month process to break down hazardous compounds underlying the 86-acre patch of coastal land. According to Zeneca planning documents, contractors will pump thousands of gallons of city water, reactive iron, microbes and microbe food into about 400 wells that dot the 86-acre site, which lies due west of Richmond’s Panhandle Annex neighborhood. The idea, California Department…
On a crisp afternoon in early September, Melanie Estrada was walking alone on her usual route in a quiet Richmond suburb, picking up kids from school to bring them to after school care at the May Valley Community Center. Suddenly, she heard a loud crunch. Across the street, Estrada saw a mountain lion passing through the hillside’s tall brush. It was brown with dark gray spots on its shoulder, muscular, and 4-to-5 feet long. “I know we’re not supposed to…
The public can now easily look up notices of pollution violations through the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s new web tool. However, environmental groups say the tool falls short of their expectations. This tool allows users to look up notices of violations in the past five years, filtered by date, county, city and keywords. Each violation entry lists location, facility name, enforcement status, and penalty amount. The information is updated daily. When a penalty is over $100,000, the agency…
A dirty red couch. An old pink baby stroller. Broken appliances. Rusted car parts. These are just some of the biggest pieces of illegally dumped trash spotted this month in a Richmond neighborhood. City crews can’t keep up with the work. “We go to a street and pick up garbage,” said Victor Mejia, a Richmond Public Works Department cleanup worker. “Then after 20 minutes, we go back to the same spot and they dumped it again.” To fight the problem,…
“People of Richmond” is a regular series in which reporters pose a question to people in the community. Answers are presented verbatim, though sometimes edited for brevity. Q: How have you personally been affected by climate change? “During Katrina I got my mom, my family and them out. After that, boarding up the house, and I heard explosions from that. From that part, it took me about three days to get to the convention center. That’s how much water we…
“People of Richmond” is a regular series in which reporters pose a question to people in the community. Answers are presented verbatim, though sometimes edited for brevity. Q: Should California increase the fines Chevron and other refineries have to pay for excessive flaring? “I mean, their profits are exponential and considering the community that they serve that are so underserved, and the impact it’s having on the community on the waterways, on the sewage, on just breathing in air quality,…