Eagle Rock Aggregates’ (ERA) plan to construct and operate the ERA Oakland Terminal Project – a marine terminal at the Port of Oakland that would import, store and distribute bulk construction aggregates – has come under fire from environmental advocates.
Advocates organized as the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP) said the port is ignoring their concerns, according to a report on KPIX5 in the Bay Area.
“WOEIP remains hopeful that the port will engage the community in a meaningful process to better analyze and mitigate the project’s environmental harm to West Oakland,” said attorney Laura Beaton, who is a partner with Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger in San Francisco and is representing the WOEIP.
The project is located at the Port of Oakland’s Outer Harbor Terminal and would utilize Berth 22 vessel and barge operations and approximately 18 acres of Berth 20, 21 and 22 backlands (land directly adjacent to a vessel berth) for stockpiling and distribution of construction aggregates. The project site lies within the boundary of the Oakland Army Base (OAB) Area Redevelopment Plan.
Similar to existing Eagle Rock Aggregates operations elsewhere, construction aggregates would be offloaded from self-unloading OGVs and conveyed to stockpiles using an overhead conveyor system.
The construction aggregates would then be (a) loaded from stockpiles to trucks using front-end loaders and transported offsite to concrete ready mix plants and other regional destination facilities or (b) loaded from stockpiles to waterborne barges using a similar conveyor system for transport to other regional destination facilities.
According to the Port of Oakland, as part of the project, Eagle Rock Aggregates proposes to:
- Install electrical infrastructure, construct and install a receiving hopper and overhead conveyor system for both the receipt of construction aggregates from OGVs and for the transport onto barges, install truck scales, install a scale house (approximately 3,000 sq. ft.), and make site entrance improvements.
- Operate a bulk marine terminal for construction aggregates, receiving up to 48 OGV calls per year and up to 2,500,000 total tons of construction aggregates per year.
- Maintain up to three construction aggregate stockpiles, each up to 40 ft. in height with a storage capacity of 329,000 tons.