Environment
In July the city will approve a new general plan, a huge policy document that will shape the future of the city for the next couple decades. The draft plan adds a unique element to the plan that focuses city policy on efforts to improve the health of Richmond residents, putting the city at the forefront of combining city policy and public health.
City and county leaders joined with members of Richmond’s growing urban farming community to discuss ways to keep West County communities at the forefront of the movement toward locally-grown foods.
It’s a blend of hope and heartbreak, of promise and peril.
In North Richmond, a community farming project may be the answer to providing healthy choices to residents who have long lived in a “food desert.”
Ready to move forward after the first quashed attempt, Chevron’s Richmond refinery began the process to restart its embattled Renewal Project on Monday by filing a new conditional use permit application. This will be the second attempt to complete the project, which was halted by a county appellate court in 2009 after it was narrowly approved by the city council. The project is meant to upgrade equipment at the refinery and replace aging components.
When we first visited Richmond’s Seed Library in June last year it was a fresh idea popularized by its coordinator, Rebecca Newburn, and other garden-lovers volunteers. Today, exactly one year from its launch in May 2010, the library has between 350 and 400 users.
Richmond’s Lincoln Elementary School playground and parking lot were turned into a Bike Fiesta Saturday, with scores of neighborhood bike riders and dozens of bicycling enthusiasts from throughout the city coming out to celebrate cycling. It was mild mayhem as bike-riding youngsters careened, sometimes on wobbly wheels, around the school grounds dodging bystanders and each other.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has scaled back the monitoring of radiation in milk, drinking water and rain, saying data shows radiation levels related to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant are consistently declining. Richmond’s California Public Health Laboratory has led the state’s air and milk testing efforts.
Richmond and North Richmond turned “green” on Saturday, celebrating the international Earth Day with a “Green” Panther Parade that was five times bigger than the one last year and several other events throughout the city.