City Government

TRASH TALK: CWS Will Build “Clean, Modern” Facility in West Oakland

Published

11 years ago

September 15, 2014

When people hear that California Waste Solutions (CWS) will build a waste transfer station in West Oakland, what comes to mind is Waste Management’s Davis Street transfer station in San Leandro, commonly known as the “Oakland dump.”

Nothing is farther from the truth, according to city leaders and officials at CWS, who are asking Oakland residents to take the time to separate fact from misinformation.

“The facility that we’re going to construct will be a state-of-the art mixed material processing and transfer facility. It will be nothing like Davis Street – it is light years ahead of what (Waste Management) is operating at Davis Street,” said Joel Corona, Chief Operations Officer of CWS.

Corona said he went this week with West Oakland resident Margaret Gordon and City Councilmember Lynette McElhaney to visit a state-of-art facility in San Carlos.

Like most of the modern facilities around the country, this plant is an indoor operation and indistinguishable from other adjacent industrial buildings.

The San Carlos plant is in an industrial park, located near Oracle. Inside, the plant is clean – there is no paper or litter blowing around. There are no odors, no rodents and no swarming birds, like people expect to find when they visit Davis Street.

“Our plant will have high speed roll-up doors. Everything we do will be inside the facility,” said Corona.

The plant and its equipment will be cleaned daily, and trash material will be moved in and out quickly, not allowed to accumulate like at Davis Street, he said, emphasizing the facility will be designed and built by top professionals in the country.

By contrast, Davis Street started its life as a landfill in 1942 and has evolved since then, according to Councilmember McElhaney. Today, “Waste Management uses bulldozers to move trash and uses that trash to buffer the bulldozer from the concrete underneath,” she said. “The (operation) requires a constant layer of trash in order to function.”

Corona also emphasized that CWS would not be doing composting anywhere in Oakland.

“We’re simply not going to do that,” said Corona, hoping to clear up misinformation. All the composting will be done out of town in Napa or Yolo counties, where the product will be closer to agriculture, he said.

The new plant, which will be located on the city’s North Gateway property at the Oakland Army Base in West Oakland, will take 18 months to build, according to Corona. In the interim, the company will use facilities at East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) or in Richmond.

CWS has plans A, B and C to ensure that it is prepared to pick up trash, starting day one next July, he said

Responding to the city’s environmental requirements, CWS will be using a fleet of trucks that operate on natural gas fuel, state-of-the-art vehicles, he said.

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Activism

Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

Published

7 days ago

June 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in policing act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden. Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.