105 results for author: CESP

Earth Day 2018 Event Photos

Earth Day 2018 Photo Booth

East Bay park and conservation groups in recession land rush

By Denis Cuff, Contra Costa Times Wednesday December 15, 2010 Longtime conservationists Ron Brown and Seth Adams anxiously hovered over an office computer and prepared to type in bids quickly when the online auction began for a 5-acre slice of Brentwood grasslands they hoped to get for a bargain. The Save Mount Diablo leaders usually had months or years to make land deals. This time, though, they figured to have 60 to 90 seconds to buy or lose the foreclosed property on this Internet auction of distressed properties. Adams tapped in a $5,000 raise. Someone in cyberspace upped the bid. Adams raised his bid again. Within a minute, Save Mount ...

Climate change: Sea rise could kill vital marshes

By Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, November 17, 2011 The critical tidal marshes of San Francisco Bay - habitat for tens of thousands of birds and other animals - will virtually disappear within a century if the sea rises as high as some scientists predict it will as a result of global warming. The sea would inundate the coastline and eliminate 93 percent of the bay's tidal wetlands if carbon emissions continue unchecked and the ocean rises 5.4 feet, as predicted by scientists under a worst-case scenario, according to a new study by PRBO Conservation Science. The tidal areas closest to the Golden Gate, including Richar...

Soccer complex developer heading elsewhere as fight over vacant land continues

By Hannah Dreier, Contra Costa Times July 10, 2011 RICHMOND -- A plan to build a soccer complex on the city's north shoreline appears to be dead, but the fight over this mostly vacant land is far from over. A developer who had proposed to build a soccer complex featuring 19 fields, a hotel and an outdoor mall on Richmond's northwestern edge is taking his proposal to Suisun City, he said last week. But the furor still rages over a draft of the city's revised general plan, which proposes to preserve the north shoreline as the city's by designating it open space. When city staff proposed the change this winter, landowners immediately ...

Land Battle Stirs Richmond

By David Ferry, The Wall Street Journal June 16, 2011 Dan Murray, above, stands in a 55-acre property near Richmond's northern shoreline that he hopes to sell to a developer. RICHMOND - A proposal to preserve a small stretch of shoreline in this East Bay city has divided the community, pitting developers and Richmond's growing Hispanic population against conservationists and the city council. The conflict involves a privately owned parcel of largely vacant marshland on the edge of the working-class city. Earlier this year, a new draft of Richmond's general plan moved to designate the land as open space to protect wildlife and ...

Berkeley Meadow rebooted: The wildest place in town

By Jim Rosenau Thursday April 14, 2011 Wildflowers in the Berkeley Meadow. All photos by Sean Gin In 1961, the Oakland Tribune reported that the city of Berkeley planned to fill another 2,000 acres of shoreline for development, including building an airport. The story prompted Berkeleyans Sylvia McLaughlin, Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick to call a meeting with local conservation groups and found the Save San Francisco Bay Association (now Save The Bay), one of the earliest and most successful regional environmental organizations in the world. (For those of you keeping score on Berkeley innovations should note that this was a year before publica...

EGRET Evicted from Building in Berkeley’s Aquatic Park (News Analysis)

By Joe Eaton, with Charlotte Perry-Houts Berkeley Daily PLanet Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Nothing brightens the holiday season quite like an eviction. This Monday afternoon, Mark Liolios, founder of the Aquatic Park Environmental Greening, Restoration, and Education Team (EGRET), locked up the Cabin, also known as the Model Boat Building, the structure he and his environmental stewardship group have been using as an interpretive center. The Berkeley Parks and Recreation Department had demanded that EGRET and its sponsoring organization Berkeley Partners for Parks accept the city's terms for a lease on the building or vacate it by December ...

Richard Goldman, S.F. philanthropist, dies at 90

By Carolyne Zinko, San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday, November 30, 2010 Richard Goldman, a philanthropist whose annual environmental prize is considered one of the world's top ecological awards, died Monday of natural causes at his home in San Francisco. He was 90. Mr. Goldman and his wife, Rhoda, dispensed hundreds of millions of dollars in support of a variety of charitable causes in the Bay Area and internationally through the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund they started in 1951. In 1989, the couple created the global Goldman Environmental Prize for grassroots environmental activists - a green Nobel, in effect. Each year, up to seven ...

Richmond casino deal by environmentalists, tribe

Tribe, developer, environmental groups announce major shoreline deal By Carolyn Jones Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, October 21, 2010 Richmond will get a Bay Trail extension and hundreds of acres of open space as part of a sweeping deal struck Wednesday between environmental groups and a tribe that hopes to build a $1 billion casino resort at Point Molate. The agreement, which stems from a 2008 lawsuit filed by Citizens for East Shore Parks and other environmental groups, calls for at least $43 million in open space acquisitions and sets aside two-thirds - 180 acres - of the resort property as parkland. "This is going to be incredibly ...