Sherry Padgett’s activism started in 2004 after she developed cancerous tumors on her left ribs, fibroid tumors in her uterus and had to have her thyroid removed because of cancer.
She could never prove her illness was linked to her time spent working across the street from a polluted site in Richmond. But when other workers near her electrical business told her they had similar health issues, Padgett embarked on a nearly 17-year battle to get the city to fully clean up the site.
“I was pissed,” Padgett said. “There was so much dirt and dust in the air that street lights would come on during the day.”
Now, the Richmond City Council is moving forward with plans to develop up to 4,000 residential units and a 20,000-square-foot grocery store on part of the 86-acre property known as the Zeneca site, just east of Marina Bay and west of Interstate 580. Though the land has undergone cleanup for years, it is still polluted with more than 100 chemicals from factories that once animated the site.
Supporters say the project will bring desperately needed housing and jobs to the city as well as $20 million in one-time community benefits and a boost to property taxes. For a city that’s seen little investment and frequently struggles with having enough resources, that’s a huge draw.
“We’ve been at this for 20 years and finally things are starting to fall into place,” said Richmond Mayor Tom Butt.
But opponents such as Padgett say the plans to clean up the site are insufficient and the fight over the development echoes previous battles in Richmond over environmental justice. The city has struggled with pollution from an oil refinery and coal terminal and is also home to two Superfund sites.
“Residents in Richmond are squeezed between multiple industrial sites and they breathe dirtier air than the rest of the Bay Area,” said Marie Logan, an attorney in Earthjustice’s California office. “Too many families living on the front lines in Richmond are unfairly and unjustly burdened by environmental hazards and pollution.”
The City Council approved a development agreement Dec. 1 with a Southern California developer that calls for partially cleaning up the site at 1400 S. 47th St. — a move that angered activists and incoming council members opposed to the project.
Butt said that with the current deal, the city gets much-needed money and tax revenue from the development and boost its housing stock at a time when the Bay Area is in dire need of housing. He believes the cleanup plan is sufficient and allows for the city to do a “better job providing services” for residents through the project’s anticipated economic development.
Butt said it is particularly difficult to get housing projects approved in Richmond with community support.
“They are against housing, they’re against business, they’re against corporations, they’re against landlords,” he said. “It’s part of the Bay Area NIMBY movement.”
Activists say their protest isn’t about housing.
“Who is going to buy these 4,000 units and what is going to happen when toxins start leeching out and harming their health?” said Karen Franklin, a resident who lives near the site. “It’s not a NIMBY type thing. We don’t want to see preventable catastrophe to other human beings.”
Now, activists hope that at least one council member will change their vote in time for the second reading of the ordinance on Dec. 15, after two council members voted against the agreement and one abstained. Otherwise, they plan to take their fight to court.
“We are not just going to stop, we are going to keep fighting,” Franklin said.
The site has a long, complicated history.
Stauffer Chemical Co. built a plant on the property in 1897 to manufacture sulfuric acid by roasting pyrite ores, or fool’s gold, according to the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.
The company dumped iron pyrite cinders into the marsh and later manufactured fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides there. After corporate mergers in the 1980s, Zeneca Corp. bought the plant, and then closed it in 1997. The company is now known as AstraZeneca — a pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company based in England.
In 1998, the California water board named the Zeneca site a toxic “hot spot.” At the time, it was one of the 10 most polluted sites in the Bay Area. Chemicals there include benzene, arsenic and polychlorinated biphenyls.
AstraZeneca spent $20 million in 2002 to offset the acidic soils, move contaminated dirt and cap the land. In 2009, the Department of Toxic Substances Control fined AstraZeneca nearly $250,000. In 2019, the agency fined AstraZeneca $25,000 and ordered it to secure the site by fixing breaches in the fence and gates and to regularly patrol the site.
Cherokee Simeon Venture I LLC — which is affiliated with AstraZeneca — now owns the site.
In 2018, the Richmond City Council voted unanimously to support a full cleanup that would cart the soil off the site — a move that environmentalists and activists applauded.
But in 2019, the agency announced a “final cleanup plan” that would only excavate some contaminated soil and build barriers in areas where the soil would remain untouched. It would also include groundwater treatment and a soil vapor extraction system.
“This cleanup allows this land to be used to create needed housing and ensures that members of the community and people who live, work or play on or around the site are protected,” Meredith Williams, the director of the Department of Toxic Substances Control at the time, said in a statement.
The agency concluded that this cleanup effort would take about two years versus the 10 years to do a full cleanup of the site. The full cleanup could also pose “far more harmful air pollution, dangerous traffic, increased dust and other adverse effects over a longer period of time,” agency spokesman Russ Edmondson said in an email.
The City Council voted to reverse its support of a full cleanup, instead supporting the agency’s 2019 plan. That 2019 vote angered activists and elected officials in neighboring cities, including Berkeley, who said the plan fell short of protecting human health in the future.
Environment scientists say thorough cleanups are necessary for land being used for housing.
“I always ask the developer, would you live there when it’s done? Are you going to buy one of those homes? I think that is a good metric,” said Thomas Azwell, an environmental scientist at UC Berkeley’s CITRIS Institute. “The preference is always cleaning up to the highest possible level.”
Azwell said a full cleanup could cost a developer up to $150 million versus up to $30 million under the current plan. The developer has said it will pay for the cleanup.
Now, the council is moving forward with a development project from Shopoff Realty Investments and Hilco Redevelopment Partners. The project will include — in addition to the homes — up to 50,000 square feet of retail space.
“This has been three years in the making for our firm … so clearly not rushed,” said Bill Shopoff, the president and CEO of Shopoff Realty Investments, at the Dec. 1 City Council meeting. “We’ve been working diligently and thoughtfully on this.”
Shopoff said in a statement to The Chronicle that they have been working closely with the government and community to redevelop the land into a “safe, environmentally sustainable and beautiful bayfront community to help bring much-needed housing and other extensive economic and community benefits” to the city.
The company said there’s a “great deal of misinformation and confusion” about the remediation effort. The current effort is a “comprehensive cleanup.”
The developer will still have to submit building designs to the city’s design review board for approval, as well as apply for building permits.
Still, incoming City Council member Gayle McLaughlin, who ran on a platform to completely clean the site, hopes the council will reverse its decision or put off a second vote until new members are seated in January.
“We know they did the wrong thing in terms of what is best for the community,” McLaughlin said. “It doesn’t mean that we don’t want any development, we just want a comprehensive cleanup.”
Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
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Developers want to build 4,000 homes on a toxic East Bay site. Activists want a full cleanup first - San Francisco Chronicle
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