Environment
Richmond is home to many species of animals. Canada Geese visit the city on their annual migrations. Harbor Seals live in the Castro Rocks and pigeons and gulls populate the sidewalks and parking lots. Tadpoles and frogs can be found in the local creeks and vernal pools. Field mice and lizards are also found. Herons and egrets nest in protected areas on Brooks Island. Deer, falcons, raccoons, ducks, foxes, owls, and mountain lions live in Wildcat Canyon and Point Pinole Regional Shoreline.
A license is needed for fishing on the waterfront or city waters but not on the piers, where in addition to crabs, sturgeon are plentiful and manta rays may also be found. Striped Bass, Bat Rays, Leopard Sharks, surf perch, jacksmelt, sturgeon, kingfish, and flounders are also found. Richmond is one of the few places where you can find the rare Olympia Oyster on the west coast, in the polluted waters along the refinery's shoreline. Rainbow Trout have recently returned to San Pablo and Wildcat creeks.
Red-tailed Hawks patrol the skies. Monarch Butterflies migrate through the city on their journey between Mexico and Canada. Wildcat Marsh has two ponds where Canada Geese often rest, and is also the home of the endangered Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse and California Clapper Rail. Another endangered species in the city is the Santa Cruz Tarweed which survives alongside Interstate 80. Wildcat Canyon also hosts falcons and vultures. Threatened Black Rails also live in the city's marshes.
After a baby Grey Whale was beached on the Point Richmond shore in May 2007, its rotting corpse became bothersome to neighbors. It took a while to remove it since various agencies argued over whom would have to pay for it.
Richmond is also home to one of the last pristine moist grassland habitats in the entire Bay Area at the former Campus Bay UC Berkeley Field Station near Meeker Slough.
In 2006 the city was sued by an environmental group for dumping raw sewage into the Bay. Councilmember Tom Butt was very vocal on the accusing the city council of turning a blind eye to the problem.
Mayor McLaughlin has set a goal of installing 5 megawatts of solar photovoltaic generation in Richmond.
Read more about this topic: Richmond, California
Famous quotes containing the word environment:
“If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)