Public Comment

New: Reply to article by Richmond Mayor Tom Butt

Chris Barlow, Partner, Wareham Development
Friday September 30, 2016 - 03:08:00 PM

Today in your on-line newspaper you posted serious allegations against Wareham Development made by Mayor Tom Butt of Richmond regarding the temporary storing of soil on one of Wareham’s properties in Richmond.

Wareham Development strongly disputes Mayor Butt’s assertions that Wareham “dumped” contaminated soil in Richmond. This is a complete misrepresentation of the facts.  

 

The facts are: 

· Clean commercial fill, removed from a parking garage under construction on Wareham’s land in Emeryville, is being stored temporarily on Wareham’s private property in Richmond before being returned to the Emeryville site for re-use in the same construction project. 

The soil will be transported off the Richmond site next week  

· We have never, and would never, knowingly dump contaminated soil anywhere, and especially not on our own land. 

 

Mayor Butt suggests a “conspiracy” with regulatory agencies. This is simply untrue  

The facts are: 

· The process of testing, removing and temporarily storing the fill on the Richmond site was approved by the appropriate regulatory agency and supervised by a professional environmental consultant. Though tests showed the fill to be below actionable levels, the consultant advised Wareham to secure the temporary stockpiles at the Richmond site according to accepted industry standards (ie. wrapped in plastic, secured, fenced and precautionary signs posted including very conservatively worded warning language). 

Mayor Butt accuses Wareham of making “unsubstantiated representations” regarding the safety of the fill in question. This is incorrect.  

The facts are: 

· Wareham Development provided staff in the City of Richmond with two sets of test results conducted by a professional environmental specialist. Both sets of results confirmed the soil temporarily stored on our property in Richmond is below actionable levels as specified by environmental regulations. The soil has been approved by the regulatory bodies for storage in Richmond and re-use in the garage project now under development in Emeryville. 

The Mayor is correct in one solitary detail. Wareham failed to verify in advance if a permit was required to temporarily store this clean commercial fill on our private property in Richmond. We were not aware we required a permit to temporarily store clean fill on private land. As soon as we became aware of the need for a permit (on September 29) we immediately made an in-person appearance at the City of Richmond permit center with our environmental consultant, met with senior city staff, provided the testing results for the soil and completed the application for a permit. The clean fill will be headed back to Emeryville for use in our garage construction project, as we always intended it would, within a week. 

Wareham absolutely regrets its failure to secure the required permit and any concern this storage has given our neighbors, elected officials and City of Richmond staff. But we also stand on our solid record of cleaning up more used real estate than any development firm in the East Shore. The company prides itself on its more than 40 year track record of being willing to invest in faded real estate assets, adapting them to contemporary use and thereby helping to attract jobs to Richmond, Berkeley and Emeryville, as well as other Bay Area cities.