San Francisco Bay salt ponds – exempt from environmental protections?

Despite widespread opposition and a rejection of their development plan by Redwood City, Cargill and their Arizona-based luxury developer partners DMB have launched a defiant legal assault against the Bay’s environmental protections.

Illustrating that Cargill/DMB continue to put their profits over the health of the Bay, the companies sent a letter last week to the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers, launching an effort to claim that key environmental protections that protect the Bay don’t apply to them.

Specifically, Cargill is seeking to have their restorable salt ponds declared exempt from the Clean Water Act, which has protected our waterways for four decades, and the Rivers and Harbors Act, the nation’s oldest environmental law, which has ensured access to our ports, rivers and bays for over a century.

Cargill has a long history of violating environmental protections in California and throughout the U.S., and has been fined repeatedly for dumping toxic pollution into San Francisco Bay. As America’s largest private corporation and one of the biggest multinational corporations in the world, Cargill was named as a “toxic ten” polluter for fouling rivers and contaminating groundwater across the country.

From their latest actions, Cargill and DMB continue to show us that just don’t get – or just don’t care – that Redwood City and the region do not want their bayfill development.  Regardless of the millions of dollars they spend fighting our environmental protections, hiring armies of corporate lobbyists and PR firms to mislead government agencies and the public, it has not and has never been legal for Cargill to build on the Bay’s salt ponds. The bottom line is that restorable Bay salt ponds are an unacceptable place for housing and development.

With the support of over 200 elected officials, environmental organizations, labor unions and community groups – and tens of thousands of Bay Area residents like you – we will continue to push to ensure that this key piece of the Bay is protected and restored to benefit people and wildlife.

Please join us in telling Cargill to seize this opportunity to do something positive for the Bay and our region by donating or selling these ponds to the public for full restoration

Thanks for all that you continue to do,

Stephen Knight
Political Director