Protecting Richmond Shoreline

Start: Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 7:00 PM GMT

End: Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 8:30 PM GMT

This is a virtual event

Point Molate Alliance

In collaboration with Point Molate Alliance and the Richmond Shoreline Alliance, California Progressive Alliance is proud to co-sponsor this panel discussion,

"The Controversy Over Point Molate and the AstraZeneca/Campus Bay Site in Richmond, CA"

When: Saturday, June 5th

Time: 11am-12:30pm

Panel includes:

Jovanka Beckles, AC Transit Board of Directors, Ward 1, former Richmond City Council member

-Pam Stello, co-chair of the Point Molate Alliance and the Richmond Shoreline Alliance

-Sherry Padgett, founder and member of Richmond South Shore CAG (Citizens Advisory Group) and Richmond Shoreline Alliance

-Andres Soto, KPFA host, co-chair of Point Molate Alliance, community organizer Communities for Better Environment

-Sally Tobin, Board of Directors for Citizens for East Shore Parks and Point Molate Alliance

*This is a virtual event. Please RSVP and you will be sent Zoom link to login. We look forward to seeing you for this important discussion on the future of Richmond Shorelines: Point Molate and Astra Zeneca in Richmond, CA.

Here is background info about preserving Point Molate: Point Molate is the last undeveloped and unprotected SF Bay headland. It is located in Richmond, CA and is a biodiversity hotspot rich in Ohlone and California history. It’s is in the East Bay Regional Park District’s Master Plan with an allocation of $4.7 million for park development, and the overwhelming results of the Point Molate public planning meetings were for a park with a commercial, cultural and educational center, “The Community Plan.” Richmond’s over 110,000 people lack adequate parkland, recreation, open space and employment/small business opportunities. Yet the Richmond Mayor orchestrated a backroom deal to privatize Point Molate for an exclusive housing development, claiming the need for housing and tax revenue.  

Expert financial analysis shows the proposed developer SunCal’s plan to construct between 1,400 to over 2,000 units of luxury housing on this remote site, with virtually no existing infrastructure, would result in yearly multimillion dollar deficits for Richmond because the city would have to pay for new infrastructure and services. A prospective buyer would require an income of over $200,000 while Richmond’s average income is $55,000/yr. The plan would destroy Ohlone sacred sites and rare ecosystems, create a car-dependent enclave while providing limited access and no active recreation for Richmond families and youth. A high fire severity zone, combined with a lack of roads and other infrastructure, raises substantial health safety concerns not adequately addressed by the city or the developer.  

Richmond’s new progressive City Council majority is reviewing the city’s options in responding to two lawsuits claiming city violations related to CEQA environmental impacts (including extreme fire danger) and Brown Act public transparency requirements. They are exploring settlements to sell the land for a park and this city council majority wants to add housing development elsewhere in Richmond where infrastructure already exists. Many potential partners, foundations, land trusts and NGOs, are enthusiastic about contributing to turning Point Molate into the “Presidio of the East Bay".

Astra Zeneca/Campus Bay Site

AstraZeneca/Campus Bay/Former Stauffer Chemical, Richmond, CA:

This 85-acre site with stunning 270-degree photographic views of the San Francisco Bay, is
located on the southeast shoreline of the City of Richmond, CA. Abundant wildlife migrating
through the site’s tidal marsh and heavy use on the bordering San Francisco Bay Trail, give no
clue that dangerous toxic chemicals are in the soil and groundwater, leaking, spreading and off-
gassing poisons, continuing a 130-year-old legacy started by Stauffer Chemical in the late
1800s.
AstraZeneca/Campus Bay/former Stauffer Chemical is a US Environmental Protection Agency
(US EPA) qualified Superfund Site, under a Voluntary Cleanup Agreement (VCA) with
delegated regulatory oversight to Cal EPA, first through the Water Board starting in 1997, then
transferred to the Department of Toxic Substances Control in 2004. The site’s 550,000 cubic
yards of complex wide-ranging hazardous material is partially covered with a 1⁄4-inch thick
concrete and paper-maché cap to keep dust down and to channel surface rain water directly
into the San Francisco Bay. The site is affected by daily tides and has no liners or barriers to
contain hazards including heavy metals, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), pesticides,
herbicides, fungicides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and radioactive materials.
The City of Richmond and broad community adopted a General Plan in 2012, followed up in
2013 and again in 2018, with unanimous City Council requests to DTSC that the site be cleaned
up to unrestricted residential standards by removing the site hazards before planned
development. “The City Council quite simply does not believe that the quality of the soil
abandoned by an industrial polluter should dictate land use policy for this Council or future City
Councils. This is a basic environmental justice issue.” [City Manager letter to DTSC Director,
1/2/2013]
In 2019 and 2020, the community’s position was derailed through a short-lived change in City
Council members who participated in a series of political deals with AstraZeneca’s chosen
potential developer. Subsequently, DTSC approved a plan to leave the site as-is by capping
with 60-acres of non-permeable concrete to double as the foundation for 4,000 condominiums,
80-feet high, starting at the San Francisco Bay marsh edge. Inevitable sea level rise of San Francisco Bay tidal saltwater infiltrating, spreading, mixing and reacting with the massive capped hazardous stew under 4,000 residential units, portends disastrous outcomes in a high risk earthquake zone.
DTSC’s most recent confounding action signed 4/29/2021, gifts a “covenant not to sue” which
mitigates liability of AstraZeneca’s preferred condominium developer, an LLC of unknown
ownership or association, in exchange for a list of “community benefits”. The site is currently
owned by the AstraZeneca, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical and agricultural products
companies with $67 billion in assets, partially derived by purchasing the Stauffer Chemical
properties and patents.
The Richmond community seeks environmental justice assistance from all sources, demanding
our Cal EPA regulators protect all living things by ordering removal of the AstraZeneca/Campus
Bay/Former Stauffer Chemical site hazards.