Features

Feds OK Continuing Campus Bay Cleanup By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday February 08, 2005

Following approvals by the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, marsh excavations have resumed at the waterfront edge of Richmond’s Campus Bay. 

Work on Stege Marsh had stopped on Feb. 1, a deadline set to ensure that the endangered clapper rail shorebird could nest and reproduce at the site. 

But the excavation of contaminated marsh sediments being conducted by Cherokee Simeon ventures hadn’t concluded as planned, and the developer sought a 30-day continuance. 

With the approval of the two federal agencies, work has resumed under the supervision of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. 

The new deadline for finishing the excavations and replacing the contaminated muck with clean fill soil is March 1. 

Cherokee-Simeon hopes to build a 1,330-unit housing project on the upland portion of the site directly over a landfill containing 350,000 cubic yards of toxics-contaminated soil and building materials created during the site’s century of use as the site of chemical manufacturing operations. 

 

—Richard Brenneman