Officials broke ground in Cupertino this week for the Permanente Creek restoration project, an initiative to remove toxic mine waste dumped into the Permanente Creek.
The project follows a federal court order signed by both grassroots environmental organization Sierra Club and building materials supplier Lehigh Southwest Cement Company, mandating that Lehigh restore 3.5 miles of watershed by 2030.
In 2011, Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that its quarry was illegally discharging high levels of toxic metals into the creek. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency and State of California followed up on the lawsuit by imposing a $2.55 million civil penalty against Lehigh for water pollution violations. The creek restoration project was evaluated at $10 million in 2013, and is estimated to cost double that amount today, according to a Sierra Club news release.
From 2012 to 2021, Lehigh was cited by Santa Clara County 2,135 times and fined tens of millions of dollars for violations including water discharge into the Permanente Creek, air quality and noise. In 2023, the company’s cement plant and limestone quarry in Santa Clara, including the quarry in Cupertino, permanently closed.
Permanente Creek sits upstream of Cupertino and flows into the San Francisco Bay. The creek houses rainbow trout and California red-legged frogs, a species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, according to the Sierra Club.
“This long-overdue restoration project will finally address the decades of toxic pollution that residents have been forced to live with. Clean water, a place for our kids to play and fish and a healthy habitat for local wildlife is all we want. It’s a big relief that these things are finally within reach,” said Mike Ferreira, chair of the Sierra Club’s Loma Prieta Chapter.