Environment
Over the last century, as industry grew and the population exploded in Richmond, conflicts between construction and restoration have been inevitable. Development and the natural landscape all over Richmond have been at odds.
The Iron Triangle has long been known for its crime rate, but now it is working on a new reputation: A more fit and healthy neighborhood.
The levels of hydrogen sulfide emitted from the Veolia wastewater treatment plant have been rising over the last few months, and if Tuesday’s City Council meeting was any evidence the plant’s neighbors have noticed. The minimum levels for emissions that Veolia has recently exceeded were set conservatively, said Chad Davisson, the wastewater management officer for the city, implying that there is no reason for concern. But that didn’t dissuade the vehement group of residents that showed up to talk about…
Students in the Environmental Science, Conservation And Photographic Excursions, or E.S.C.A.P.E. Club, at Dejean Middle School are rolling up their sleeves and trading urban living for a day on Slide Ranch. The Club started in 1999 at Adams Middle School when three teachers took their students on an end of the year trip to Monterey Bay. Some of the students had never seen the ocean before. This inspired the teachers to create an after-school club focused on helping students experience…
First, they heard the hissing. Then, they smelled the stench; gas escaping from a pipeline inside the hole carved out of the street on South 47th Street and Wall Avenue on Saturday morning. A laborer with Ghilotti Bros.—a San Rafael-based contracting company—called his supervisor, who was a few blocks away. They had backed into a two-inch PG&E pipeline while digging down to the sewer line. “As soon as I got out of the truck, I could hear it blowin’,” the…
Although Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory representatives didn’t reveal the lab’s preference for a new location at Thursday night’s Community Advisory Group meeting, community members once again strongly supported Richmond as the site for the second LBNL campus. The meeting was the final update for the community on the site’s selection before the decision, which is expected by the end of November. Sam Chapman, the manager of state and community relations at LBNL, said in a brief presentation that the lab…
At Richmond’s first food policy council meeting Tuesday night at City Hall, Urban Tilth Executive Director Doria Robinson instructed the carefully chosen participants to catalog the city’s most pressing food-related problems. The session started off quickly. As the participants introduced themselves, they cited their biggest concerns while Robinson took notes on a dry-erase board in front of the group. “We are trying to make a list, to really get a sense of the scope of all different issues that are…
In the food packaging business, polystyrene has become a four-letter word, but the food industry simply doesn’t have a cost-effective, eco-friendly answer to the plastic that Dow Chemical introduced to Americans in the early 1940s. In 2007, Richmond business owner Allen King thought he had the answer.
When Luz Gomez, the deputy chief of staff for County Supervisor John Gioia, tried to establish a small deli on a corner in North Richmond, even with help from the County, had to overcome more zoning code, development agency and operator obstacles then she anticipated. Though she says that she feels close to opening the neighborhood’s only restaurant, it has been a battle that has lasted years. “I can’t tell you the kinds of barriers we have encountered along this…