Zeneca Toxic Tour

Hello, and welcome to the STQRY tour of the Zeneca site, also known as Campus Bay. This tour is produced by Richmond Shoreline Alliance, a community organization dedicated to environmental protection, restoration, and justice for the Richmond shoreline, and was made possible by a grant from the Rose Foundation. We’re proudly sponsored by the SF Bay Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. During this tour, you’ll learn the site’s history and hazards, its ecological and community impacts, and why we demand a complete cleanup.

Richmond’s history of pollution and environmental degradation can be traced to industry, processing plants, and the Chevron refinery. Currently, there are 115 toxic sites across this city of 116,000 people. Besides suffering health effects caused by air pollution from the refinery and other sources, residents are forced to cope with hidden contamination of our soil and water. In 2006 the city was even sued by Baykeeper for dumping sewage into the Bay. The 86-acre Zeneca site and its 100-year history of toxic contamination clearly represents both a lack of environmental concern and the untold damage inflicted by companies focused on profit over people.

The lack of public knowledge is one of the biggest and most dangerous stumbling blocks to stopping this damage. If we don’t take action, the plan to develop up to 4,000 residential units on the site without a complete cleanup will go forward. This tour is designed for you to learn the development plan for the Zeneca site, the dangers it poses, and actions you can take with us to clean it up and protect our health and environment for future generations.

The content of this tour was written by Lisa France. Visuals by Matilija Olvera. Audio by Alyssa Soto-Gimenez.