Cargill facing growing opposition on Peninsula

By Stephen Knight, Political Director

There is a growing rebellion against Cargill's plan to build a city in San Francisco Bay.

In an important opinion piece in the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto City Council member Yoriko Kishimoto calls out Cargill's plan as a grave threat to the Peninsula's future: "A proposed development in Redwood City so breathtaking in its size and misguided in its scope that nothing of its kind has been seen in half a century." She points out that "this is not an infill site and this is not the place for housing."

And the Redwood City Daily News recently reported that the Menlo Park City Council is moving to declare the project an environmental hazard to the region. Menlo Park Council Members Kelly Fergusson and Andrew Cohen agree that "the current Cargill/DMB development proposal seeks to reverse long-standing regional and local policies to protect the Bay and its wetlands."

Meanwhile, in an opinion piece published in the Redwood City Daily News, Redwood City resident Marsha Cohen expressed concern that the city "is stonewalling requests for public records." She points out that the mayor works for business lobbyist SAMCEDA, a strong public supporter of the Cargill development. Ms. Cohen wants to know what advice was given to the mayor about the conflict of interest.

Currently, the Redwood City Council is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to determine whether Cargill’s application should move forward. Clearly, many leaders on the Peninsula have found a much cheaper answer: It should be dead on arrival.

Go to www.savesfbay.org/redwoodcity for more information and to sign our petition, and stay tuned for more interesting updates.

SF Water Board puts trash in its place

By Amy Ricard, Communications and Policy Associate

Fish and wildlife may finally get some relief from pervasive trash pollution.

Yesterday, the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board voted to approve historic and long-overdue requirements for cities to make significant, measurable reductions in trash flowing to the Bay.

This is great news for the Bay! Even the San Francisco Chronicle thinks so.

Under the new municipal regional permit, cities and other permittees must reduce trash getting into the Bay by 40 percent in the next four years, and achieve zero trash discharge from stormwater within 12 years.

Intense public interest and involvement and years of sustained advocacy have finally produced a permit approach that can begin to reduce Bay trash. In fact, 20 state and federal legislators, nearly 40 community organizations and environmental groups and thousands of Save The Bay supporters have joined us in advocating that trash must be reduced like mercury and other urban runoff pollutants.

What to do now? Save The Bay is urging the Water Board to work diligently to ensure full compliance with these groundbreaking regulations; and through the Clean Bay Project, we are working with cities to help them achieve these important trash reductions.