No homes on toxic dump
The AstraZeneca site on the Richmond southeast shoreline has been leaking highly contaminated water and vapors for decades, from the 550,000 cubic yards of hazardous material left behind after 100-years of chemical manufacturing on this shoreline site. Despite the known risks of sea level rise, liquefaction (which is more likely as sea level rise progresses), and health risks should any of the proposed “remedies” fail, the small majority of lame duck City Council members approved pouring concrete over most of the 86-acre site (but doing nothing about the toxics flowing underground onto neighboring properties and into the Bay), with up to 4,000 units in multi-story condos to be built on top of the mess.
The outgoing council gave no consideration to updated sea level rise data available from the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). They also failed to heed Cal EPA’s more health-protective vapor intrusion standards announced on February 14, 2020, which apply to the most dangerous and widespread contaminants on this site. In addition, the lame duck council members blatantly and arrogantly ignored the residential and business community’s near-unanimous 15-plus years of requests for a full and complete cleanup of this site before any person begins working or living on this site. The City’s extremely cumbersome and poorly executed public participation tools through Zoom have also called into question the City’s intent regarding public participation during this unprecedented COVID pandemic.
The community objected so strongly to the City’s railroading of this bad proposal, that in November a new City Council majority was voted in, who support working with the highly engaged community. However despite many requests that all remaining decisions be held until the new council was seated, the lame duck council members still pushed through additional decisions regarding the Campus Bay/Zeneca development proposal in December. Due to the gross judgement errors by those few council members, a lawsuit was filed on December 30, 2020 against the City of Richmond. Now your support is needed to help the new council members fight for a health-protective review, and reversal, of all those bad decisions.