Environment
Luis Moreno brought his 17-year-old stepdaughter to Doctors Medical Center last Monday after she missed two days of school due to flu symptoms. She is not a Richmond resident—she lives in Pinole—but Doctor’s Medical Center is the closest emergency room. And she is uninsured. Like her, nearly a quarter of the patients Doctors Medical Center sees every day are uninsured and an additional 30 percent are underinsured, meaning that Medicare or MediCal covers a portion—but not all—of their hospital costs,…
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been proud of Richmond Monday. Mother Nature would have been thrilled, too, as more than 400 people strolled several blocks of the Richmond Greenway and watched hundreds of volunteers plant seeds of hope and food. Under a warm winter sun folks young and old congregated near the community garden portion of the trail and celebrated the city’s 6th Annual Martin Luther King National Day of Service event. Organized by Urban Tilth, the gathering…
Even though Martin Luther King is technically a holiday, Urban Tilth is asking residents to spend the day helping beautify the city to celebrate the accomplishments of the civil rights leader. On January 21, Urban Tilth is asking volunteers to help plant seeds in the Greenway Community Garden, improve bike trail paths, create a mural for the Richmond’s Greenway, plant pollinator seeds to attract butterflies, and assist with several other outdoor projects. “On Monday we will spend the day, giving…
What should the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) take into account as it begins the environmental review for its new Richmond Bay Campus? Wildlife and birds? Noise pollution and new traffic? These are question for Richmond residents, who have until February 4 to make suggestions. Last January, LBNL chose Richmond as the preferred site for its second campus, which will consolidate several bioscience facilities now scattered throughout the region. Richmond aggressively sought the lab–which city officials hope will be an…
The city’s metallurgical consultant wrote in a report submitted to City Manager Bill Lindsay Tuesday afternoon that Chevron’s choice of piping to replace the No. 4 crude unit at the Richmond refinery is “consistent with industry standards.” Chevron submitted plans detailing recommendations for repairing the piping in the refinery to Lindsay on Dec. 12. The company’s analysis argued that making the new pipes of 300-series stainless steel, as the U.S. Chemical Safety Board has suggested, would introduce “a new damage…
The 55-page report, submitted to the city’s planning division on Wednesday, says Chevron based its decision to use nine-chrome alloy on the “expert judgment” of its refinery materials engineer.
A month after the election, the departing Councilmember Jeff Ritterman can see the end of his term on the council, if not an end to the debate about public health.
Decades of industrial pollution have left toxic contaminants in Richmond’s air, water, and soil. Click on the icons to learn more.
The site of a former Stauffer Chemical Co. plant in Richmond is still contaminated with a huge amount of toxic waste. Sherry Padgett, whose office is across the street, has spent the last decade trying to get the site’s current owners and environmental regulators to clean it up. Click the arrow to hear Padgett and other local residents tell their stories.