By Carolyn Cheng
For decades, the United Heckathorn Superfund site in Richmond has posed a health threat to surrounding communities and vital shoreline ecosystems. Located in Richmond’s Inner Harbor at the Lauritzen Channel, the site has been home to chemical processing companies beginning as early as the 1940s, leaving behind a toxic slurry of pesticides that persists in the environment today.
It all started back in the 1960s, when local and state agencies discovered that the United Heckathorn Chemical Company’s pesticide tanks were leaking, and the company was releasing contaminated wastewater into the channel. The company was producing and handling DDT and dieldrin, two highly toxic pesticides that can cause liver cancer, premature birth, respiratory impacts, and type 2 diabetes in humans, and can severely impact the nervous system, liver, and reproductive health of wildlife. In 1970, Heckathorn went bankrupt, and in 1990, the site became a priority clean-up location for the Environmental Protection Agency.
In the ‘90s, the EPA began cleaning up the site, removing soil from the dryland portion of the site and dredging the Lauritzen Channel and Parr Canal of contaminated marine sediment. In some areas, the cleanup helped to decrease toxic pesticide levels, but in others, the levels of contamination actually increased.
The EPA discovered there were multiple sources of ongoing pollution into the channel. This includes contaminated soil flowing into the channel from shoreline erosion, discharges from storm drain runoff, and contaminated groundwater seeping into the site. As sea levels rise, bringing groundwater up with it, toxic pesticide residues are brought further to the surface.
Thankfully, the EPA is ready to try again to clean up the site. Knowing that the health and safety of the Richmond community and shoreline ecosystems are at stake, the Sierra Club and other partners, including the Richmond Shoreline Alliance and San Francisco Baykeeper, have engaged with the EPA to ensure they fulfill their responsibility. We know that our community education and feedback are essential and will empower us to shape the cleanup to best benefit our neighbors and our environment.
Now is the time to act: the EPA and partner cleanup organizations have agreed to co-host a six-part community discussion series about the United Heckathorn site before they release their cleanup plan later this year. We invite you to attend, to learn, and to share your questions and concerns directly with the EPA. The first community meetings were held on April 23 and May 21 via Zoom. Further meetings will take place on Thursday, June 26, and Tuesday, July 29. Sign up to get involved and stay up to date on the rest of this series online at sierraclub.org/sfbay/events, or email carolyn.cheng@sierraclub.org.
We need your help to ensure, after all these decades, that we finally get an effective cleanup of the site!