Page One

Have construction crews working in the polluted marsh at the edge of Richmond’s Campus Bay been operating in violation of city code? 

That’s what one leading critic of the project said city building officials told her when she paid them a visit after hea vy equipment operated through the night at the South Richmond site.  

Sherry Padgett of Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development (BARRD) met Fred Clement and Jay Gandhi of the building department after fellow BARRD members who live near the site called when they were awakened by loud construction noises. 

Padgett said Clement told her that the site permit allowed operations only between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, although crews have been laboring seven days a week to excavate a highly polluted marsh and to truck the waste off site. 

City staff did not return calls for comment. 

The site, proposed as the home of a 1,330-unit residential development, is under split jurisdiction, with the inland portion governed by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and the waterfront marsh supervised by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. 

“I’m not surprised,” said Richmond Councilmember Tom Butt said when told of the apparent work permit violations. 

“Though I don’t agree with it, city policy has been that if a project involves a toxic cleanup or oversight by the DTSC or the water board, all oversight is left to the agencies which have more authority and can impose the higher penalties.” 

However, Steve Morse, assistant executive officer for the water board, said his agency doesn’t regulate working hours. “That’s a local permitting activity,” he said.  

Karen Stern, a spokesperson for Cherokee Simeon Ventures, the firm which owns the site, said the company had obtained all necessary permits for weekend activities at the site. 

However, a copy of the purported permit provided to the Planet was simply Cherokee Simeon’s permit application letter with Clement’s initials where the proposed start time of 7:30 a.m. had been altered to 8 a.m. 

Stern said she was informed by Cherokee Simeon’s site supervisor Bill Collins that changes were frequently approved in similar fashion, but Padgett said Clement and Gandhi informed her that any major changes required action by the city Planning Commission. 

Stern said Collins had contacted Clement and reminded him of the letter after being reached by a Daily Planet reporter and was assured that their work was in compliance. 

“We’ve always been working under the assumption we h ad all the necessary approvals,” she said. 

Morse said he considered the overnight work necessary because a large excavator had tumbled into the marsh Wednesday afternoon, and the crews were attempting to extract the machinery before the morning high tide. 

Weekend work, however, is not an emergency issue, he said. 

Tangled jurisdictional issues have plagued the site throughout the year. 

Until criticisms by BARRD and others forced a December legislative hearing called by Assemblymembers Loni Hancock and Cindy Montanez, the water board had sole jurisdiction over the site. 

Peter Weiner, BARRD attorney, said the group wants total jurisdiction over all parts of the site transferred to the DTSC, which has both stricter regulations and vastly greater scientific expertise. 

Crews have been hauling excavated marsh sediments to a landfill near Pittsburg, but DTSC announced this week that 4,000 cubic yards of soils contaminated by hazardous’ levels of arsenic, copper, lead, mercury, and nickel must be hauled to a hazardous waste facility at Altamont. 

During the work Wednesday evening, workers wearing no hard hats or other protective gear, operated bulldozers, backhoes and other heavy construction equipment throughout the night, building a roadway from one part of the site to another and trucking toxic-laced soils from one section of waterfront marsh to another. 

No supervisors were present from either the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, which administers the upland portion of the site, or the Regi onal Water Quality Control Board, which has jurisdiction over the waterfront areas. 

Scott said that his agency had been properly notified. 

Stern and Bill Carson, an official from LFR (formerly Levine-Fricke Recon), said the work was conducted appropriat ely.›