Environment
The East Bay Economic Development Alliance celebrated creativity and innovation at its first annual awards ceremony Thursday. The event, held in Oakland at the Fox Theater, honored East Bay organizations that do work in the fields of clean technology, advanced manufacturing, food, information and communication technology, life sciences, engineering, design and education.
The announcement this week of the approximately $11 million in losses Chevron sustained in fines and claims related to the August 6 Richmond refinery fire was dwarfed by its fourth-quarter earnings. Although Chevron’s total earnings for the entire year fell by three percent in 2012, the corporation brought in $7.2 billion in the final three months of the year, a 41 percent increase from the same period of the previous year. News of its earnings ended a mixed week for…
The East Bay Regional Parks Foundation has kicked off its 2013 Trail Challenge program designed to encourage hikers of all ages and skill levels to get out and experience the East Bay’s many hiking trails.
A middle-aged Laotian-American man walked up to the doorstep of a Russian business in a wealthy suburb in New York’s Rockaway Peninsula a few days after Hurricane Sandy made her catastrophic landfall. He rang the doorbell—one of more than a dozen doorbells he had rung that day—and waited. Widespread blackouts triggered by Sandy had left many homes without heating and lights, and the streets were deserted, sparking a spate of burglaries in some parts of this stretch of Long Island,…
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…