Potrero Power Plant Shoreline

A plan to clean up the tainted San Francisco Bay and shoreline fronting the former Potrero Power Plant and Pier 70 sites has been drafted and will be presented to the public next week.

Under the proposed plan, impacted sediments will be removed from the Nearshore Zone (up to 50-75 feet from the shoreline), capped with natural, local materials and then monitored. Within the Northern Transition Zone (another 100 to 150 feet into the Bay), impacted sediments will be treated in-place with activated carbon.

Potrero Power Plant Shoreline Cleanup Plan

The Southern Transition Zone will be monitored to ensure natural recovery processes are improving conditions, but will not be actively treated. No impacts were detected in the surface sediments east of the Transition Zones.

The area has been tainted by industrial activities since the mid-1800s, from ship building, to foundries, to sugar refining, and the power plant from around 1910 to 2011.

Following the public meeting for the cleanup plan to be held at 6PM in Mercy Housing’s Community Room at 1180 4th Street on November 4, the San Francisco Bay Region Water Board will review and respond to the public’s comments before making a final decision with respect to the final cleanup plan and timing.

The switchyard portion of the power plant site fronting Illinois will remain in operation, with plans for a modern new substation and public plaza in the works, as we revealed earlier this year.

19 thoughts on “Cleanup Plans For 20 Acres Of San Francisco’s Waterfront”
  1. Appearing tonight at Bottom of the Hill:

    Start your night off mellow as ‘Station A’ drops house and post-house jazz mashups. Amps plug in at 8:30.

    ‘Switchyard/Construction Yard’ evokes art school synth glory, followed by civil-war bearded ‘Hoe Down Yard,’ all the way from Charleston SC. Punk never died, at least not according to ‘Port Property’ and their touring partner ‘Offshore Sediment Area’. Wallow in your fast fading bourgeois memories of the city as Northeast Area, Former Power Generation Facility, and local favorite, Tank Farm spin into the wee hours.

    18 and over. 15 in advance, 20 at the door. F your phone.

        1. Big swing and a miss, Futurist. You’re like the doddering old uncle at Thanksgiving who completely misses the joke.

  2. Nooooo this neighborhood was founded on concrete and industrial waste! Wildlife and non-tainted sediments are completely out of character!

    1. “Current uses at the Hoedown Yard include parking, equipment storage, stockpiling and temporary storage of drilling mud, concrete, soil, sand, gravel and asphalt associated with PG&E utility projects.” (page 6)

  3. I vote for a public manufactured beach sunrise club location on the east side, decked with deck chairs, and service chairs, where you raise a flag and get a drink… call it the brighton beach private of the pacific….?

  4. How much will it cost? Will it paid by the Port or State? As long as SF does not pay for it, this would be nice, though I do not know how important this really is.

    1. Really? We live in one of the most wealthy and successful cities in the world. We can afford to clean up our filthy past. Good grief!

      1. i agree but the city mismanages money so much. There are more than 200 city employees that make over $200K/yr. Our budget is the highest per capita of any city in the world. Yet our idea for tranformative public transport is a “faster bus” We should be building subways

      2. We can afford to clean things up, sure, but why in the world spend money on this particular few hundred square feet of bay mud? Whatever tiny future benefit there might be surely isn’t worth the damage that stirring it all up will cause to the mud around it that isn’t going to get treated. It’s a bit like doing a facelift on just one eyebrow.

  5. This site is fantastic. I was down there for the food festival over the summer and it’s a huge piece of land w/ great possibilities. And yes, we should pay to clean it up.

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