1.
Richmond, California
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Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7,1905, under the McLaughlin Administration, Richmond was the largest city in the United States served by a Green Party mayor. As of the 2010 U. S. Census, the population is at 103,710. The largest, Richmond, Virginia, is the namesake of the California city, the Ohlone Indians were the first inhabitants of the Richmond area, settling an estimated 5,000 years ago. The name Richmond appears to predate actual incorporation by more than fifty years, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad had its terminus at Richmond. The first post office opened in 1900, Richmond was founded and incorporated in 1905, carved out of Rancho San Pablo, from which the nearby town of San Pablo inherited its name. Until the enactment of prohibition in 1919, the city had the largest winery in the world, in the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan was active in the city. In 1930 the Ford Motor Company opened a plant called Richmond Assembly Plant which moved to Milpitas in the 1960s. The old Ford plant has been a National Historic Place since 1988, the city was a small town at that time, until the onset of World War II which brought on a rush of migrants and a boom in the industrial sector. Standard Oil set up here in 1901, including a what is now the Chevron Richmond Refinery and tank farm. There is a pier into San Francisco Bay south of Point Molate for oil tankers, the western terminus of the Santa Fe Railroad was established in Richmond with ferry connections at Ferry Point in the Brickyard Cove area of Point Richmond to San Francisco. Many of these lived in specially constructed houses scattered throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including Richmond, Berkeley. A specially built rail line, the Shipyard Railway, transported workers to the shipyards, kaisers Richmond shipyards built 747 Victory and Liberty ships for the war effort, more than any other site in the U. S. The city broke many records and even built one Liberty ship in a five days. On average the yards could build a ship in thirty days, the medical system established for the shipyard workers at the Richmond Field Hospital eventually became todays Kaiser Permanente HMO. It remained in operation until 1993 when it was replaced by the modern Richmond Medical Center hospital, Point Richmond was originally the commercial hub of the city, but a new downtown arose in the center of the city. It was populated by many department stores such as Kress, J. C. Penney, Sears, Macys, during the war the population increased dramatically and peaked at around 120,000 by the end of the war. Once the war ended the workers were no longer needed
2.
Bay mud
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Bay mud manifests low shear strength, high compressibility and low permeability, making it hazardous to build upon in seismically active regions like the San Francisco Bay Area. Typical bulk density of bay mud is approximately 1.3 grams per cubic centimetre, Bay mud has its own official geological abbreviation. The designation for Quaternary older bay mud is Qobm and the acronym for Quaternary younger bay mud is Qybm, an alluvial layer is often found overlying the older bay mud. In relation to shipping channels, it is necessary to dredge bay bottoms. It is not uncommon to dredge the same channel repeatedly since further settling sediments are prone to redeposit on an open valley floor. Bay muds originate from two generalized sources, first alluvial deposits of clays, silts and sand occur from streams tributary to a given bay. The extent of these unconsolidated interglacial deposits typically ranges throughout a given bay to the extent of the historical perimeter marshlands, second, in periods of high glaciation, deposits of silts, sands and organic plus inorganic detritus may form a separate distinct layer. Thus bay muds are important time records of activity and streamflow throughout the Quaternary period. Some depositional formation is quite recent, such as in the case of Florida Bay, where much of the bay mud has accumulated since 2000 BC, and consists of primarily decayed organic material. In the case of the Bristol Channel in the United Kingdom bay, mud formation has been occurring at least since the Eemian Stage, in other cases such as with San Francisco Bay, deposition has been interrupted by sea-level changes, and strata of vastly different vintages are found. In the San Francisco Bay Area, these are called Young bay mud, human activities can also affect deposition, close to half of the Young Bay Mud in San Francisco Bay was placed in the period 1855–1865, as a result of placer mining in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Construction on bay mud sites is difficult because of the low strength. A number of buildings have been constructed over bay muds, typically employing special mitigation designs to withstand seismic risks. Complicating design issues, fill is sometimes deposited on the surface level. For example, the Dakin Building in Brisbane, California was designed in 1985 to sit on piles 150 feet deep, anchoring to the Franciscan formation, below the bay muds and through an upper fill layer. Furthermore, the entrance ramp has been set on a giant hinge to allow the surrounding land to settle, while the building absolute height remains constant. The Crowne Plaza high-rise hotel in Burlingame, California was also designed to sit over bay muds, as was the Westin Hotel in Millbrae, California, indeed, Bostons entire Back Bay district is named for the tidal bay that it now covers. Logan International Airport and the San Francisco International Airport are also constructed over bay mud, when the mud layer is exposed at the tidal fringe, mudflats result affording a unique ecotone that affords numerous shorebird species a safe feeding and resting habitat
3.
Salt marsh
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It is dominated by dense stands of salt-tolerant plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the marsh in trapping and binding sediments. Salt marshes play a role in the aquatic food web. They also support terrestrial animals and provide coastal protection, salt marshes occur on low-energy shorelines in temperate and high-latitudes which can be stable or emerging, or submerging if the sedimentation rate exceeds the subsidence rate. Commonly these shorelines consist of mud or sand flats which are nourished with sediment from inflowing rivers and these typically include sheltered environments such as embankments, estuaries and the leeward side of barrier islands and spits. In the tropics and sub-tropics they are replaced by mangroves, an area that differs from a marsh in that instead of herbaceous plants. Most salt marshes have a low topography with low elevations but a vast wide area, salt marshes are located among different landforms based on their physical and geomorphological settings. Such marsh landforms include deltaic marshes, estuarine, back-barrier, open coast, embayments, deltaic marshes are associated with large rivers where many occur in Southern Europe such as the Camargue, France in the Rhone delta or the Ebro delta in Spain. They are also extensive within the rivers of the Mississippi Delta in the United States, in New Zealand, most salt marshes occur at the head of estuaries in areas where there is little wave action and high sedimentation. Such marshes are located in Awhitu Regional Park in Auckland, the Manawatu Estuary, back-barrier marshes are sensitive to the reshaping of barriers in the landward side of which they have been formed. They are common along much of the eastern coast of the United States, large, shallow coastal embayments can hold salt marshes with examples including Morecambe Bay and Portsmouth in Britain and the Bay of Fundy in North America. They have a big impact on the biodiversity of the area, salt marsh ecology involves complex food webs which include primary producers, primary consumers, and secondary consumers. The low physical energy and high grasses provide a refuge for animals, many marine fish use salt marshes as nursery grounds for their young before they move to open waters. Saltmarshes across 99 countries were mapped by Mcowen et al, a total of 5,495,089 hectares of mapped saltmarsh across 43 countries and territories are represented in a Geographic Information Systems polygon shapefile. This estimate is at the low end of previous estimates. Mats of filamentous blue-green algae can fix silt and clay sized sediment particles to their sticky sheaths on contact which can increase the erosion resistance of the sediments. This assists the process of sediment accretion to allow colonising species to grow, as a result, competitive species that prefer higher elevations relative to sea level can inhabit the area and often a succession of plant communities develops. Coastal salt marshes can be distinguished from terrestrial habitats by the tidal flow that occurs
4.
Chevron Corporation
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Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. One of the companies of Standard Oil, it is headquartered in San Ramon, California. It was also one of the Seven Sisters that dominated the petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. Chevrons downstream operations manufacture and sell products such as fuels, lubricants, additives, the companys most significant areas of operations are the west coast of North America, the U. S. Gulf Coast, Southeast Asia, South Korea, Australia and South Africa. In 2010, Chevron sold an average 3.1 million barrels per day of refined products like gasoline, diesel, Chevrons alternative energy operations include geothermal, solar, wind power, biofuel, fuel cells, and hydrogen. In 2011–2013, the company planned to spend at least $2 billion on research, Chevron has claimed to be the worlds largest producer of geothermal energy. In October 2011, Chevron launched a 29-MW thermal solar-to-steam facility in the Coalinga Field to produce the steam for enhanced oil recovery, the project is the largest of its kind in the world. Chevron is also one of the first two brands to be Top Tier certified. The other is Tulsa, Oklahoma based QuikTrip, one of Chevrons early predecessors, Star Oil, discovered oil at the Pico Canyon Oilfield in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Los Angeles in 1876. The 25 barrels of oil per day well marked the discovery of the Newhall Field, in September 1879, Charles N. Felton, Lloyd Tevis, George Loomis and others created the Pacific Coast Oil Company, which acquired the assets of Star Oil with $1 million in funding. Pacific Coast Oil became the largest oil interest in California, by time it was acquired by Standard Oil for $761,000 in 1900. Pacific Coast operated independently and retained its name until 1906, when it was merged with a Standard Oil subsidiary, another predecessor, Texas Fuel Company, was founded in 1901 in Beaumont, Texas as an oil equipment vendor by Buckskin Joe. The founders nickname came from being harsh and aggressive, Texas Fuel worked closely with Chevron. In 1936 it formed a joint venture with California Standard named Caltex, to drill, the Texas Fuel Company was renamed the Texas Company, and later renamed Texaco. In 1911, the government broke Standard Oil into several pieces under the Sherman Antitrust Act. One of those pieces, Standard Oil Co. went on to become Chevron and it became part of the Seven Sisters, which dominated the world oil industry in the early 20th century. In 1926, the changed its name to Standard Oil Co. of California. Today Chevron is the owner of the Standard Oil trademark in 16 states in the western and southeastern U. S, to maintain ownership of the mark, the company owns and operates one Standard-branded Chevron station in each state of the area
5.
Estuary
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An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a zone between river environments and maritime environments. They are subject both to marine influences—such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water—and to riverine influences—such as flows of fresh water and sediment. The inflows of sea water and fresh water provide high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Most existing estuaries formed during the Holocene epoch with the flooding of river-eroded or glacially scoured valleys when the sea began to rise about 10. Estuaries are typically classified according to their geomorphological features or to water-circulation patterns, the banks of many estuaries are amongst the most heavily populated areas of the world, with about 60% of the worlds population living along estuaries and the coast. The word estuary is derived from the Latin word aestuarium meaning tidal inlet of the sea, there have been many definitions proposed to describe an estuary. However, this definition excludes a number of water bodies such as coastal lagoons. This broad definition also includes fjords, lagoons, river mouths, an estuary is a dynamic ecosystem having a connection to the open sea through which the sea water enters with the rhythm of the tides. The sea water entering the estuary is diluted by the water flowing from rivers. The pattern of dilution varies between different estuaries and depends on the volume of water, the tidal range. Drowned river valleys are known as coastal plain estuaries. In places where the sea level is rising relative to the land, sea water progressively penetrates into river valleys and this is the most common type of estuary in temperate climates. Well-studied estuaries include the Severn Estuary in the United Kingdom and the Ems Dollard along the Dutch-German border, the width-to-depth ratio of these estuaries is typically large, appearing wedge-shaped in the inner part and broadening and deepening seaward. Water depths rarely exceed 30 m, examples of this type of estuary in the U. S. are the Hudson River, Chesapeake Bay, and Delaware Bay along the Mid-Atlantic coast, and Galveston Bay and Tampa Bay along the Gulf Coast. They are relatively common in tropical and subtropical locations and these estuaries are semi-isolated from ocean waters by barrier beaches. Formation of barrier beaches partially encloses the estuary, with only narrow inlets allowing contact with the ocean waters, bar-built estuaries typically develop on gently sloping plains located along tectonically stable edges of continents and marginal sea coasts. They are extensive along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U. S. in areas with active coastal deposition of sediments, barrier beaches form in shallow water and are generally parallel to the shoreline, resulting in long, narrow estuaries
6.
Rainbow trout
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The rainbow trout is a trout and species of salmonid native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead is a form of the coastal rainbow trout or Columbia River redband trout that usually returns to fresh water to spawn after living two to three years in the ocean. Freshwater forms that have been introduced into the Great Lakes and migrate into tributaries to spawn are also called steelhead, adult freshwater stream rainbow trout average between 1 and 5 lb, while lake-dwelling and anadromous forms may reach 20 lb. Coloration varies widely based on subspecies, forms and habitat, adult fish are distinguished by a broad reddish stripe along the lateral line, from gills to the tail, which is most vivid in breeding males. Wild-caught and hatchery-reared forms of species have been transplanted and introduced for food or sport in at least 45 countries. Introductions to locations outside their range in the United States, Southern Europe, Australia, New Zealand. Some local populations of subspecies, or in the case of steelhead. The steelhead is the state fish of Washington. The scientific name of the trout is Oncorhynchus mykiss. The species was named by German naturalist and taxonomist Johann Julius Walbaum in 1792 based on type specimens from the Kamchatka Peninsula in Siberia. Walbaums original species name, mykiss, was derived from the local Kamchatkan name used for the fish, the name of the genus is from the Greek onkos and rynchos, in reference to the hooked jaws of males in the mating season. In 1855, William P. Gibbons, the curator of Geology and Mineralogy at the California Academy of Sciences, found a population and named it Salmo iridia and these names faded once it was determined that Walbaums description of type specimens was conspecific and therefore had precedence. Thus, in 1989, taxonomic authorities moved the rainbow, cutthroat, Walbaums name had precedence, so the species name Oncorhynchus mykiss became the scientific name of the rainbow trout. The previous species names irideus and gairdneri were adopted as subspecies names for the rainbow and Columbia River redband trout. Anadromous forms of the rainbow trout or redband trout are commonly known as steelhead. Subspecies of Oncorhynchus mykiss are listed below as described by fisheries biologist Robert J. Behnke, resident freshwater rainbow trout adults average between 1 and 5 lb in riverine environments, while lake-dwelling and anadromous forms may reach 20 lb. Coloration varies widely between regions and subspecies, adult freshwater forms are generally blue-green or olive green with heavy black spotting over the length of the body. Adult fish have a reddish stripe along the lateral line, from gills to the tail
7.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon
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Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons—organic compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen—that are composed of multiple aromatic rings. Formally, the class is defined as lacking further branching substituents on these ring structures. Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons are a subset of PAHs that have fused aromatic rings, the simplest such chemicals are naphthalene, having two aromatic rings, and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. PAHs are neutral, nonpolar molecules found in coal and in tar deposits and they are produced as well by incomplete combustion of organic matter. The tricyclic species phenanthrene and anthracene represent the members of the PAHs. Smaller molecules, such as benzene, are not PAHs, PAHs with five or six-membered rings are most common. Those composed only of six-membered rings are called alternant PAHs, which include benzenoid PAHs, the following are examples of PAHs that vary in the number and arrangement of their rings, Examples of PAH compounds PAHs are nonpolar and lipophilic. Larger PAHs are generally insoluble in water, while some PAHs are soluble, the larger members are also poorly soluble in organic solvents as well as lipids. Although PAHs clearly are aromatic compounds, the degree of aromaticity can be different for each ring segment, according to Clars rule for PAHs the resonance structure with the largest number of disjoint aromatic п-sextets—i. e. Benzene-like moieties—is the most important for the characterization of the properties, in contrast, in anthracene the resonance structures have one sextet, which can be at any of the three rings, and the aromaticity spreads out more evenly across the whole molecule. Three Clar structures with two each are present in chrysene. Superposition of these reveals that the aromaticity in the outer rings is greater compared to the inner rings. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found in natural sources such as creosote. They can result from the combustion of organic matter. PAHs can also be produced geologically when organic sediments are transformed into fossil fuels such as oil. Wild fires are another notable source, substantially higher outdoor air, soil, and water concentrations of PAHs have been measured in Asia, Africa, and Latin America than in Europe, Australia, and the U. S. /Canada. PAHs are typically found as complex mixtures, most PAHs are insoluble in water, which limits their mobility in the environment. Aqueous solubility of PAHs decreases approximately logarithmically as molecular mass increases, two-ring PAHs, and to a lesser extent three-ring PAHs, dissolve in water, making them more available for biological uptake and degradation
8.
Port of Richmond (California)
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For other ports with similar names see, Port Richmond The Port of Richmond is a major shipping terminal in Californias San Francisco Bay. It ranks number one for ports of San Francisco Bay in vehicles, in addition to these the port can also handle dry-bulk, break-bulk, and containers. Seven of the terminals are city owned in addition to 5 dry-docks while there are 11 privately owned terminals from whence 90% of tonnage emerge, the port is served by a sophisticated rail network served by four major rail companies. The port itself has described as a boondoggle and as unprofitable, however in 2012 operations finally broke even. The port was constructed in the 1980s about thirty years after the World War II-era Kaiser Shipyards were decommissioned, in 1993 the port received 26,000,000 tons of goods. The majority of the cargo was oil and other petroleum products, the port is located at the end of Canal Boulevard in South Richmond. Port Richmond also receives imported cars and delivers them to dealers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, the port is a major entry point for vehicles from Asia. The port signed a million dollar 15-year deal in 2010 to import Honda vehicles to the city after spending 37 million on upgrades in infrastructure from warehousing to rail lines. In 2011 the city signed a deal to bring in Subaru vehicles on a five-year, the port is currently flirting with Toyota and Chinese auto manufacturers to expand its unmet capacity. In 2012 controversy arose over a $4 million federal grant to build a new safety, the port authority itself supported redeveloping a decrepit former headquarters while influential councilmember Tom Butt preferred to refurbish the Riggers Loft building, a historic landmark. Butt countered that the preference is a terrible idea and that he would support anything else. The Riggers Loft building was eventually chosen On December 11,2011 the tug Tiger sank in the Port of Richmond Harbor, the Tiger was a decommissioned former US Navy tug that served during World War II. In 1944, modifications were made to the Tiger in order to hold more oil, although it is not known how much the tug Tiger could hold, it is estimated that its maximum capacity was about 78,000 gallons of oil. The Tiger was originally brought to the Port of Richmond in order to be cleaned before heading to be scrapped, as a result of the tug Tiger sinking, an unknown amount of oil was leaked into the port. The United States Coast Guard was called in, in order to clean up the oil, after the spill approximately 1,450 gallons of an oil-water mixture was collected from the Tiger. There are still continued efforts in order to clean up oil from the Tiger, in addition to this, another tug, the Lion, parked near the Tiger has an estimated 15,000 gallons of oil-water that have been collected from the vessel. Though it is if there remain issues with Lion, a protective barrier remains around it. Compared to other ports, Port of Oakland, Port of Long Beach, and Port of Los Angeles, the pollutants being measured are ROG, CO, NOx, PM, SO2, and CO2
9.
San Francisco Bay
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San Francisco Bay is a shallow estuary in the U. S. state of California. It is surrounded by a region known as the San Francisco Bay Area, dominated by the large cities San Francisco, Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from approximately 40 percent of California and it then connects to the Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. However, this group of interconnected bays is often called the San Francisco Bay. The bay was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2,2013, the bay covers somewhere between 400 and 1,600 square miles, depending on which sub-bays, estuaries, wetlands, and so on are included in the measurement. The main part of the bay measures 3 to 12 miles wide east-to-west and it is the largest Pacific estuary in the Americas. Later, wetlands and inlets were filled in, reducing the Bays size since the mid-19th century by as much as one third. Recently, large areas of wetlands have been restored, further confusing the issue of the Bays size, despite its value as a waterway and harbor, many thousands of acres of marshy wetlands at the edges of the bay were, for many years, considered wasted space. As a result, soil excavated for building projects or dredged from channels was often dumped onto the wetlands, from the mid-19th century through the late 20th century, more than a third of the original bay was filled and often built on. The idea was, and remains, controversial, there are five large islands in San Francisco Bay. Alameda, the largest island, was created when a shipping lane was cut in 1901 and it is now predominantly a bedroom community. Angel Island was known as Ellis Island West because it served as the point for immigrants from East Asia. It is now a park accessible by ferry. Mountainous Yerba Buena Island is pierced by a tunnel linking the east and west spans of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, attached to the north is the artificial and flat Treasure Island, site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. From the Second World War until the 1990s, both served as military bases and are now being redeveloped. Isolated in the center of the Bay is Alcatraz, the site of the federal penitentiary. The federal prison on Alcatraz Island no longer functions, but the complex is a popular tourist site, despite its name, Mare Island in the northern part of the bay is a peninsula rather than an island. During the last ice age, the now filled by the bay was a large linear valley with small hills
10.
East Brother Island Light
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East Brother Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on East Brother Island in San Rafael Bay, near the tip of Point San Pablo in Richmond, California. It marks the entrance to San Pablo Bay from San Francisco Bay, built in 1874 and automated in 1969, the lighthouse was designed in the American Stick style by Paul J. The former keepers house began operating as a bed and breakfast in 1980 and offers guests a unique, day visitors may come to the island for a small fee to hang out and enjoy the vistas. Although the U. S. government recognized the need for a light to mark the area, instead the government turned its attention to the island, which it already owned. Large-scale blasting leveled the island off, and the keepers house was built with the attached tower. The lamp was first lit on March 1,1874, the light tower is attached to keeper’s house, a two-story Victorian placed on a blasted away 1-acre rock. There was an assistant keeper’s house, equipment building, cistern, the water cistern was blasted to a depth of 30 feet and is capable of holding 50,000 US gallons of rain water. Two of the most notable lighthouse keepers were John Stenmark and Willard Miller, each of whom logged twenty years of service, originally from Sweden, Stenmark joined the lighthouse service at age twenty and distinguished himself for bravery during a boating accident. He was eventually appointed keeper at East Brother in 1894, and he lived at the station with his wife, Miller began his tenure at East Brother in 1922. During his service the light was upgraded to a fixed, fifth-order Fresnel lens, the steam fog signal was also converted to a compressor-driven diaphone. A serious accident on March 4,1940 resulted in a fire destroyed the islands wharf. The United States Lighthouse Service ran the operation until 1939. They had to light the original lens wick and keep it filled with whale oil, on many foggy nights, they would have to fire up the steam boilers to drive the foghorns, hauling coal up the long ramp from the boat. After the lighthouse was automated, the government wanted to tear down the house and other buildings. The lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, after several years of neglect, a non-profit group, East Brother Light Station, Inc. was formed in 1979 to restore the landmark. Government grants, private donations, and volunteer labor restored the structures on the island, F. United States Coast Guard Historians Office. East Brother, CA at LighthouseFriends. com East Brother Light Station at www. us-lighthouses. com East Brother Island Light at the National Register of Historic Places
