Environment
A state law mandating organic waste recycling will go into effect in Contra Costa County on Jan. 1. El Cerrito is drawing up plans on how it will implement the law. Organics like food scraps, yard trimmings, food-soiled paper and cardboard make up half of the trash in landfills and are the third-largest source of methane in California, according to California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. To reduce methane emissions, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law in 2016 establishing…
Dying trees, withering leaves, flammable plants. They fill in spaces around and between homes on East Richmond’s hills, an ember away from fueling disaster. On these slopes east of Interstate 80 lie dense neighborhoods such as May Valley, El Sobrante Hills, and Castro Heights. In 2009, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection assessment flagged the area as a “very high fire hazard severity zone.” Every year, the Richmond Fire Department inspects vegetation in the area and urges homeowners…
In the spring, Eleanor Pilling Chappelear skipped school every Friday. Instead of Zooming in for class, the 13-year-old stood outside her hometown City Hall in El Cerrito to protest inaction around climate change. One of her signs says: WE SKIPPED OUR SCHOOL TO TEACH YOU A LESSON. Eleanor still stands outside of El Cerrito Hall every Friday, only now she comes after school. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmental activist who walked out of school at the age…
PG&E told Richmond City Council Tuesday that dirty insulators on poles have triggered the frequent power outages residents are experiencing and that the company will wash poles “on a more regular basis.” PG&E is washing 100 to 160 poles a day in Richmond and other parts of Contra Costa County and plans to increase that to 1,000 poles per week. With about 6,000 poles to address, PG&E expects to finish the work by Nov. 15, PG&E’s Darin Cline said. Over…
Even in a drought, you don’t have to resign yourself to a brown lawn or a drab garden. A Bay Area utility recently started a “super rebate” program to encourage people to convert their wilted shrubbery into a lush garden of not-too-thirsty native plants. The East Bay Municipal Utility District, which provides water and wastewater service to many communities in the East Bay, is offering customers $1.50 per square foot of converted turf lawn. The rebate comes as a credit…
Madalyn Law knows how to keep the food in the refrigerator from going bad when the power goes out. She learned the hard way. Living in Richmond’s Park Plaza neighborhood, Law has experienced four power outages over the past four weeks. To keep her food from spoiling, she “did it old school” by not opening the refrigerator door too often. “I have never experienced outages like this, and I’ve been here for 42 years,” Law said. “The scary part is,…
On Contra Costa County beaches and up and down the California coast on Saturday, volunteers armed with trash bags and garden gloves picked up cups, bottles, paper and all sorts of debris discarded on beaches. At Bayfront Park in Pinole, 14-year-old Josiah Ireton joined other Boy Scouts from Pinole and Hercules, laboriously hauling tires and filling bags with litter. “We found a lot of plastic straws, discarded food containers … and we found a lot of glass, especially on the…
The sound of waves sliding across the sand, children laughing, and people talking permeated Richmond’s Keller Beach on a warm Saturday afternoon in late August. Paddle boarders and swimmers dotted the ocean, with children splashing closer to shore. Seaweed dried on the beach, its scent mingling with that of food simmering on a grill. The water was warm and calm, said Christina Kossa, who lives in Berkeley and has been swimming in the bay for about eight years. It was…
A day after the Richmond Chevron refinery belched a plume of heavy smoke that wafted across the Richmond skyline, the company said the issue prompted a low-level community warning and was “quickly corrected.” Richmond interim fire Chief Michael Smith told the San Francisco Chronicle that the billowing smoke captured in photos on social media Tuesday afternoon was caused by a low-level flaring incident. The level is the company’s lowest and was issued “to keep residents informed,” Tyler Kruzich, a Chevron…