Environment
The Richmond Fire Department introduces its first Fire Prevention Plan.
The Human Rights and Human Relations Commission of the city of Richmond unanimously endorsed an ordinance calling for the phasing out of coal transportation by privately-owned Levin-Richmond Terminal. Monday’s vote was a new development in the contentious debate over coal and petcoke brought by train from Utah to Richmond for transport to Asia. The legislation, co-authored by City Councilmember Eduardo Martinez, details the environmental and health damages as a result of handling the carbonaceous rock. The ordinance highlights concerns about…
Electrician and two-time cancer survivor Sherry Padgett could throw a baseball from her 49th Street cabling business and hit what Richmond residents call “the Zeneca site:” an eighty-seven-acre property that contains more than a century’s inheritance of hazardous waste from manufacturers including the now-defunct herbicide maker Stauffer Chemical and the European pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. Padgett calls the chemicals on the site a “witch’s brew.” Around 10 p.m. Tuesday, the City Council voted 5-2 to reverse its support for a cleanup…
A new community-led committee postponed regulating local air pollution in favor of gathering more data – a delay some say comes at a cost.
A steady line of vehicles pulled into the parking lot of Richmond’s Galileo Club, most of them carrying old mattresses, hazardous household waste and empty propane tanks. Workers in neon vests unfastened the cushy bedding and large containers, moving and stacking the items like a well-oiled machine. The scene was Richmond’s annual Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Collection drive, which this year fell on Saturday, Sept. 14. The event invites citizens of West County not only to dispose of domestic waste…
Richmond locals begin installing more than 100 air quality sensors throughout the city in an effort to improve the city’s air pollution and health outcomes.
The Richmond City Council will soon consider an ordinance that would restrict the handling of coal and petcoke, a byproduct of oil refining, on port terminals in Richmond. A draft of the ordinance, introduced in December, has been approved by the city attorney, and it is expected to go to the council for a vote, although according to that office, a date has not been set yet. The ordinance, authored by Councilmember Eduardo Martinez, calls for “the prohibition on the…
Orton Development, Samuelson Schafer, SunCal, and Point Molate Partners each presented plans, in 20-minute chunks, to both the council and a chamber filled with protesting members of the public. The crowd, many a part of the Point Molate Alliance— a coalition of residents which that seeks to halt development on the site—carried signs, pictures, paintings and an illustrated cloth banner that said “Save Pt. Molate.” Over 30 people spoke during the public comment period to criticize and oppose the proposed plans.
Each year, thousands of monarch butterflies from across the west make their way to the California coast where they spend their winter, including making migratory stops at East Bay parks. For the past two decades, volunteer citizen scientists have been counting them during the Annual Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count, organized by the Xerces Society. Christina Garcia, a naturalist at the East Bay Regional Park District, has been counting butterflies at Ardenwood Historic Farm in Fremont for over 20 years. This…