Features

Richmond Council Delays Regulatory Switch Decision By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Friday February 18, 2005

BARRD, the RPA—and a capacity crowd in council chambers—want DTSC, UCB doesn’t, CSV wasn’t saying and the Richmond City Council’s working it out. 

Though two versions of Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin’s resolution calling the state to hand control of toxic cleanup at two controversial South Richmond properties failed to win majority support Tuesday night, the battle’s far from over. 

Councilmembers who turned thumbs down said they didn’t oppose McLaughlin’s idea for a regulatory switch on the Campus Bay waterfront and at the adjacent UC Berkeley Field Station—only that they wanted some more answers. 

Their other concern was the second part of resolution, which called for a halt to all cleanup activities on both sites, pending a full review by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). 

Councilmember Maria Viramontes said she wanted to hear from Contra Costa County Public Health Director Dr. Wendel Brunner before she voted, a point echoed by others on the council. 

When it came time to vote, Mayor Irma Anderson and Councilmembers Nathaniel Bates, Mindell Penn and Richard voted no on the resolution, Viramontes and colleague John Marquez abstained, leaving only McLaughlin, Tom Butt and Vice Mayor Jim Rogers in favor. 

Loud boos from the audience followed. 

Rogers immediately moved the passage of an amended resolution, leaving out the call for an immediate work stoppage. Penn said she was appalled at the move. “I’m not going to have it rammed down my throat,” Penn said. “I don’t want any part of this.” 

More boos. 

“This is also about councilmembers learning to work together,” declared Viramontes. “This could have probably passed if some people had been willing to work with other members.” 

More boos. 

“This issue, this item is over,” said the mayor to still more boos. 

City Attorney Everett Jenkins stopped Anderson, reminding her that she couldn’t declare the item over because a motion and second were on the table. 

Cheers. 

But this time the abstainers joined the naysayers and Rogers’ motion failed 3-6. 

More boos. 

But the resolution wasn’t dead. Viramontes, Anderson and others said they’d be happy to reconsider—but only when they’d received input from Brunner and Jenkins’ office—the latter worried about the measure’s potential for sparking lawsuits. 

Tuesday’s meeting hinted at a shift in the opposition to Campus Bay and the toxics cleanup at both sites. 

Previous protests drew only a few members of Richmond’s large African-American community, while Tuesday witnessed a a much larger turnout. 

Following the two defeats of McLaughlin’s resolution, the council paid honors to the project’s most outspoken opponent, African-American Ethel Dotson, for her role in creating a DTSC Community Advisory Group (CAG) to serve during the DTSC-supervised cleanup. 

The body, which has no official power to act, serves both as a conduit for community views to reach the DTSC and for DTSC information to reach the concerned public. Dotson presented the DTSC with 80 signatures from area residents, 30 more than required. 

The fight for McLaughlin’s resolution isn’t over. 

A member of the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), McLaughlin has championed the cause of Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development (BARRD), the activist group which has led the fight to oust the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board from oversight of cleanup of Campus Bay and the field station. 

Heavily contaminated by a century of chemical manufacturing, both sites are targeted for development by Cherokee Simeon Ventures (CSV), a joint venture between a Marin County developer and a multinational venture capital firm which specializes in development of restored hazardous waste sites. 

Critics say the water board is incapable of providing adequate oversight. The board’s director admitted to a legislative hearing four months ago that his agency doesn’t have a toxicologist on its staff. 

The DTSC, a statewide agency well-stocked with toxics experts, assumed jurisdiction of most of the Campus Bay site in December, but the regional water board remains in control of the waterfront and the full UCB site. 

Mark B. Freiberg, director of the university’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, told the Richmond council before the vote that the school intended to run its own cleanup under water board supervision. 

Tuesday evening, Freiberg told the council that “there is confusion in the public mind between the two sites,” noting that 60 UC staffers were involved in a $30 million ongoing cleanup effort at the university-owned property. 

“I am very proud of the way that the university has approached the cleanup with a very aggressive stance” to remove contaminants from the site, he said. 

Russ Pitto of Simeon Properties left the comments to Doug Mosteller, the project manager for Cherokee Investment Properties, which is bankrolling the Campus Bay development. 

“I am here to state that we have been and will continue to work with DTSC,” Mosteller said. “We are currently working under an order from DTSC, and Cherokee supports the formation of a (DTSC) Community Advisory Group.” 

As Freiberg noted, Cherokee Simeon Ventures is the university’s pick to transform the field station into Bayside Research Campus, a joint academic/corporate research park with more than two million square feet of new construction. Unlike at Campus Bay, the developer would have no role in the ongoing toxic cleanup. 

For Padgett and the other critics of the water board’s handling of the site, the mission statements of the two agencies reflect a profound difference in focus. 

The website of California Water Resources Board, parent of the local boards, carries this statement from Chair Arthur G. Baggett Jr.: “The State Board's mission is to preserve, enhance and restore the quality of California's water resources, and ensure their proper allocation and efficient use for the benefit of present and future generations.” 

The DTSC’s statement reads: “The Department's mission is to restore, protect and enhance the environment, to ensure public health, environmental quality and economic vitality, by regulating hazardous waste, conducting and overseeing cleanups, and developing and promoting pollution prevention.”?