.png)
The Richmond Shoreline Alliance calls for a single-family residential-grade cleanup of the 86-acre Campus Bay/Zeneca Superfund-qualified toxic waste site, one of the largest, most complex hazardous waste sites in the country.
​
The site housed Stauffer, Inc., a chemical manufacturing facility purchased by Zeneca, Inc., a subsidiary of the multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company AstraZeneca.
For over a century, hazardous waste from Stauffer’s manufacturing processes was dumped or buried onsite. Nonetheless, in 2020, despite the site’s high levels of extremely dangerous chemicals, the Richmond City Council approved a development plan for the site that would include up to 4,000 units of housing. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control’s (DTSC) cleanup plan relies on outdated sea-level rise data from 2011 and health risk assessment information from 2008. In spite of decades of recorded health issues from nearby residents, the plan to create housing for thousands of people is still going forward.
Already leaking toxins into the adjoining marsh and San Francisco Bay, the site is located alongside the San Francisco Bay Trail, a popular destination for bikers, walkers, and families. What most outdoor enthusiasts don’t realize is that they are in danger of being exposed to toxic contamination less than one hundred yards from the trail. Nor do many nearby Richmond residents know its history, or that it was never adequately cleaned up. Final decisions regarding the fate of the Zeneca site rest with the City of Richmond and the DTSC, so community engagement is a critical part of ongoing efforts to influence policy at the local and state level.
STAUFFER METALS' APPLICATION TO THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION USNEC TO MELT PURE URANIUM INTO INGOTS
​
THIS IS NOT A “BROWNFIELD” as it was characterized in the staff report written by the City of Richmond Community Development Director. This is a US-EPA superfund qualified site, and as such, it "poses a threat to human and environmental health." It also qualified very high on the US-EPA scoring of Superfund sites, meaning this is not a trivial distinction. It escaped federal Superfund listing only because Zeneca took advantage of the loophole that allows wealthier polluters to request oversight by the state (CA Dept of Toxic Substances Control) rather than the federal EPA. Make no mistake: this doesn’t change the fact that there are over a hundred types of Class 1 hazardous waste in high volumes in both the soil and groundwater of this site.
When voting to approve the Campus Bay development (aka the "Development Agreement") with 4,000 residential units on the Zeneca site, the outgoing Richmond City 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 ignored the residential and business community's near-unanimous 15-plus years of requests for a complete cleanup of this site.
Due to the gross judgment errors by the slim majority of the prior council, the community’s ask to the Richmond City Council is to do a complete health-and-safety review, which includes at a minimum consideration of the US-EPA TCE health risk standards revised in February 2020 and the global warming sea level rise predictions which were doubled in January 2021.
DRAFT Campus Bay Sea Level analysis by Zeneca tech consultants (dated 9/7/2022)
Expert/independent review #1 of DRAFT Campus Bay Sea Level analysis
Expert/independent review #2 of DRAFT Campus Bay Sea Level analysis
