Much of the economy of the City of Emeryville during the late
19th and the 20th centuries focused on industrial development and
activity. Thriving industries on or near the bay front during this time included a tannery, a recycling facility where used
chemical drums were dumped out and washed and, on the site of the Emeryville Shellmound, pesticide
and pigment factories, built in 1924. However, by the 1980s the industrial facilities
had begun to decay and increasingly were idle, in part because they could not meet modern
environmental standards. In the 1990s the City of Emeryville began an ambitious
undertaking to clean up and redevelop former industrial areas of the City.
One focus of redevelopment was the
Bay Street Project,
which included a pigment plant on Shellmound Street. Industrial activity at the site had deposited toxic contaminants in the soils and groundwater at the site, including
hydrogen sulfide, arsenic and heavy metals, which posed ecological and public health threats as
they leached into the Bay. The City of Emeryville
Redevelopment Agency proposed to clean up these toxic residues and collaborate with a developer in the
redevelopment of the site as a shopping, entertainment and residential complex, which
could provide a cultural and economic focus for the revitalized City of Emeryville.
In compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act
(CEQA), the City prepared an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for its proposed
Bay Street Project. The
EIR, certified in 1999, noted that the project site was known to be the location of the
historically renowned Emeryville Shellmound. The site had been subject to significant
archaeological investigations in the first decades of the 20th century, which revealed
thousands of artifacts and hundreds of burials, as well as vast quantities of dietary
remains and other living debris. Grading for the initial industrial development in
1924 was known to have leveled the mound. Nonetheless, the EIR imposed a condition that if
archaeological remains were discovered during the course of site remediation or
construction, work would stop and archaeologists and Native Americans would be
consulted.
Before the remediation of the toxics in the soil could begin, the
vacated industrial properties had to be demolished. The Redevelopment Agency began demolition of industrial buildings, grading, and removal of foundations
in late 1997. During rainstorms early in the spring of 1998, regulators became concerned that
pigment in the runoff from the site might be contaminating the adjacent creek and San
Francisco Bay. The demolition contractor excavated a storm water containment basin
on the Bay Street property, near Shellmound Street, at the north
side of the channelized Temescal Creek. A City Inspector noticed that material
excavated for the basin contained substantial amounts of bone and marine shell and some human bone. In accordance with state law, the Alameda
County Coroner was summoned. He determined that the human bone likely was of Native
American origin. An archaeologist summoned to assess this material determined
that an archaeological deposit indeed was present, and that it almost certainly was a remnant of the
Emeryville Shellmound. Upon being notified of the find by the County Coroner, the
California Native American Heritage Commission appointed Ohlone Native American
representative, Katherine Perez, to provide recommendations for the treatment and
reinterment of human remains at the site.
In the following weeks,
the URS Corporation archaeological group was retained by the Agency to assess the archaeological
deposit and provide treatment recommendations. Through detailed examination of
soil layers (stratigraphy) exposed in the stormwater retention basin, and a
systematic program of auger coring to assess the extent of subsurface archaeological deposits, archaeologists determined that the subsurface base of the
Emeryville Shellmound and associated archaeological deposits still remained beneath the industrial foundations on the Bay Street site. Archaeologists found that basal portions of this
deposit remained essentially intact, and that human bone and human burials were present.
The remnants of this archaeological site could provide significant information about the
prehistory of the San Francisco Bay Region.
In part because of the toxic material present in the soil, it
would not be possible to preserve most of the remaining deposit intact. Remediation and removal of deteriorating
foundations and tanks inevitably would destroy additional portions of the archaeological
deposit. Further, the proposed development was anticipated to result in extensive and deep soil disturbance,
which would destroy most of the remains of the site. Upon the recommendation of
the archaeological team, the Redevelopment Agency decided to sponsor an extensive
archaeological investigation to preserve some of the significant materials and information
the site contained.
Because human remains were known to be present in the site,
and because ancestral human remains represent spiritual values to the Ohlone people,
apart from their archaeological value, additional measures were
proposed as a way of partially addressing the damage that would be done. In recognition
of the long history and the people represented by the massive archaeological deposit, the City decided to incorporate memorialization and interpretive
elements in the Bay Street Project (which at that time was known as
the South Bayfront Project). Ohlone
representatives would monitor the archaeological work, and also would participate in
memorialization efforts. The information on this web page is provided in
commemoration of the people who occupied the Emeryville Shellmound, and
also as a means of returning the results of the archaeological work to the public.
The Community Room at the Bay Street
Project will provide
additional information about the Shellmound, as well as a map of the various
commemorative and educational elements at the Bay Street Center.
