Environment
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) on Friday announced its selection of a cleanup plan for one of Richmond’s most notorious brownfields: an industrial site located on the city’s south shoreline, once occupied by a succession of corporate tenants including Stauffer Chemical Co. and pharmaceutical company Zeneca Inc. The plan will excavate contaminated soil and install barriers in areas where tainted soil will be left in place. It would take about eight fewer years to implement and involve tens…
Richmond residents who lost power during the Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) to prevent wildfires earlier this fall may soon be eligible for rebates for backup power equipment they buy to keep the lights on in future shutoffs. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a $100 million budget last month for a program to help keep electricity flowing during power shutoffs like the one that darkened neighborhoods across the Bay Area earlier this month. The program will provide rebates…
Updates on the vegetation fire at Point Isabel in Richmond.
Richmond’s waterfront celebrated a new symbol lighting up its night sky. The “Changing Tide” started giving off multi-colored streaks of light on the night of October 5.
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…