Threats to Strawberry Canyon

The map below, from the Lab's most recent Long Range Development Plan, shows the boundaries of land transferred from UC Berkeley jurisdiction to LBNL. A nearly imperceptible process has changed the natural environment in this area and our relationship to it.

The first major encroachment into Strawberry Canyon was the Molecular Foundry, an imposing building of 96,000 gross square feet*, seen in the mid-ground of the photo to the right.

(* Gross square feet refers to the total square feet of all floor space and other spaces within a building, as measured from the outside walls.)

The Long Range Development Plan
Since the construction of the Molecular Foundry, the Regents of UC Berkeley have certified an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Lab's Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). The LDRP has been the foundation of the spate of recent construction at the Lab and is the basis for future growth until the year 2025. The plan is available here in PDF format.

The LDRP would increase the Lab from the current level of 1.76 million square feet of occupiable space, about 4,375 people and 2300 parking spaces up to 2.42 million gross square feet of occupiable space, 5,375 people and 2,800 parking spaces. Planned development includes the construction of 980,000 gross square feet of new building space, some as high as eight stories, and the demolition of 320,000 gross square feet of existing structures for a net development total of 660,000 gross square feet of new buildings at the Lab.

These plans have ignored the unstable geological conditions of the hills to the east of the campus where most of the new construction is planned, even though a University geologist explained the danger in a Letter to the UC Regents, strongly recommending that "Major buildings of any kind should not be constructed in either of these canyons bordering this huge block of unstable rock." See also videos explaining these dangers.

In addition to the destruction of natural habitat which the planned construction would cause, there would also be daily environmental degredation and pollution during construction. In order to implement the expansion, the Lab will have to mobilize tens of thousands of truck trips, averaging at least 4,000 one-way haul truck trips per year and, during peak construction times, up to 10,000 one-way truck trips per year or 65 trips per day, all of them roaring through Berkeley at about 85 decibels (dBA) and spewing toxic diesel particulate matter as they pass as close as 30 feet to Berkeley residences. Those truck trips are in addition to the diesel trucks that will visit the expanded Lab for deliveries, waste hauling and other functions, as well as the thousands of trucks necessary to implement the 1 million square feet of construction projects planned for the adjacent U.C. Berkeley campus.

Yet an alternate site for new facilities such as those proposed in the LRDP does exist: the Richmond Field Station.

LDRP Projects
The first LRDP projects have already been announced:

The Computational Research and Theory Facility (CRT),
a 140,000 gross square foot structure located in Blackberry Canyon, which is drained by the North Fork of Strawberry Creek. Read about the legal challenges to this project here.

BELLA: The Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator
Building 71, constructed in 1957, located in the northwest portion of LBNL, would be modified to house the Laser Accelerator (see map).

Save Strawberry Canyon submitted two comments on the BELLA project to UC Berkeley in July 2009: You can read PDF copies of the July 14 letter and the July 24 letter. In September, 2009 The U.S. Dept. of Energy declared that the proposed development of the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator will have no significant environmental impact (see a PDF copy of the announcement and related documents at the BELLA website.

HELIOS
The proposed Helios Energy Research Facility was to be prominently located in Strawberry Canyon. The proposed site for the 160,000 gross square foot seven-story building was in a recognized landslide area. Despite knowing of a "significant lens of colluvial material [area of unstable soil] underneath the building footprint," the Regents intially approved the Environmental Impact Report on the project. After a legal challenge by Save Strawberry Canyon, the UC Regents decertified the Helios Environmental Impact Report. LBNL then relocated the project, but in the same vicinity, as shown in the map below.

In response to protests against the new Helios plan, the Regents announced a decision to relocate part of Helios out of Strawberry Canyon and to divide it into two projects: "Helios West" for a downtown Berkeley location at the state public health building site, and a smaller "Helios East" at an unspecified LBNL hill site to be announced later. The revised plans for the downtown location were approved by the Regents on Jan. 20, 2010.

The General Purpose Laboratory (GPL)
Also slated for Strawberry Canyon, the 43,000 gross square foot General Purpose Laboratory GPL) was to be sited adjacent to the University's Botanical Garden. First announced in December 2008, LBNL took pause, responded to public pressure, and identified a recently announced new location in Blackberry Canyon, which is in the upper watershed of Strawberry Creek (see map to right).

The GPL is part of the Seismic Life Safety, Modernization, and Replacement of General Purpose Buildings, Phase 2 Project. A Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) has been announced and is available here. The project is a hybrid that combines demolishing several structures, retrofitting the Hazardous Waste Handling Facility (see Bdlg. 85 in DEIR Figure 3-10), and constructing the new GPL which will allow vacating 36,000 gross square feet of off-site leased space (See the Project website).

Retrofitting the Hazardous Waste Handling Facility — located within the slide-ridden East Canyon area (see DEIR Figure 4.5-2 titled "Geologic Map of the East Canyon Area") — will also include landslide repair (see Bldg. 85 in DEIR Figure 3-11).

The proposed site for the GPL in the upper watershed of Strawberry Creek is also in a landslide area.

Save Strawberry Canyon will be studying the environmental report to determine its adequacy pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Also of interest is the supplemental analysis to the Long Range Development Plan EIR study of traffic impacts. Significant deterioration in Level of Service (LOS) would occur at four intersections instead of three previously identified. In addition to traffic congestion, Save Strawberry Canyon has an ongoing interest in studying air quality impacts from diesel particular matter. Trucks involved in demolition, construction and hazardous waste removal are routed (see DEIR Figure 4.12-1) from I-80 and I-580 up University Avenue and two-lane Hearst Avenue, the location of multi-unit residential structures, to the hillside Lab location.

The Richmond Field Station was studied as an alternative (see below), but the preferred plan is to consolidate buildings at the Lab's hillside location.

Read about legal actions taken against the LRDP projects here...

An Alternative Site?
An alternative to constructing new buildings, roads, and parking lots in the environmentally-sensitive and geologically-unstable Strawberry Canyon area would be to use other sites. One such possibility is the Richmond Field Station.

Save Strawberry Canyon will continue to oppose dangerous development
If the Long Range Development Plan proceeds unaltered, other projects will also be built in Strawberry Canyon. With your support, Save Strawberry Canyon will continue its efforts to ensure that future development in the canyon does not endanger the natural environment, the cultural legacy of the area, or the lives of those who live and work in its surroundings.