The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is returning to Richmond Harbor for a second attempt in a second century to remove toxic mud at the bottom of the Lauritzen Channel.

The channel was first contaminated from 1947 to 1966 by the United Heckathorn Company. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, no chemicals were manufactured on site. Heckathorn received raw pesticides from manufacturers, ground them in open-air mills, mixed them with solvents and packaged them for use in liquid or powder form.

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Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.