Point Isabel Regional Shoreline in Richmond, California, is operated by East Bay Regional Park District, and is a multi-use park for joggers, windsurfers, kayakers, photographers, picnickers, and people walking dogs. It has access for pedestrians and via public transit, private vehicles, and bikes (although bike-riding within Point Isabel itself is not allowed). It also features a concession offering food for people and grooming for pets. A longtime community organization and nonprofit, Point Isabel Dog Owners and Friends (PIDO), is active in the maintenance and improvement of the park.
History This now park was incorporated into the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) in 1975. The United States Postal Service operates a large bulk mail facility adjacent to what is now Point Isabel Regional Shoreline. As mitigation for the construction of this large facility on the shoreline, USPS offered to lease what is now Point Isabel Regional Shoreline free of charge to the EBRPD until 2025. The lease came with the condition of free public access.Point Isabel text side, Point Isbael Regional Shoreline Brochure, East Bay Regional Parks District, retrieved August 26, 2007
Point Isabel was acquired by the East Bay Regional Park District (EBPRD) in 1975 from the United States Postal Service (USPS). The EBRPD entered a 50-year lease agreement with the US Postal Service as mitigation for the bulk-mail center that was being built adjacent to the land that would become Point Isabel Regional Shoreline. The lease ended in October of 2025 but the park is continuing to operate and remains accessible to the public free of charge.
Originally 23 acres, Point Isabel gained an additional 20 acres of land located across the Hoffman Channel - called North Point Isabel (also referenced as Battery Point). These additional 20 acres were acquired in 2002 when McLaughlin Eastshore State Park (then Eastshore State Park) was created. North Point Isabel can be accessed from Point Isabel via a short footbridge or from the Bay Trail. There are also more than 2.5 miles of San Francisco Bay Trail in the vicinity of the park.
Both Point Isabel and North Point Isabel, like many parks along the East Bay shoreline, are landfill. For years North Point Isabel was a dumping ground for industrial waste during the 1950s and 1960s. The land received the moniker Battery Point due to the large quantities of battery casings that were buried there under the control of the Santa Fe Land Improvement Company. Prior, lead from ammunition and explosives had been accumulating since the 1850s when it was a popular spot for bird hunting. In the 1900s, there was a dynamite factory that operated at Point Isabel as well. Upon the closure of the factory, it was used as target practice for a rifle club from the late 1930s to the late 1950s. In 1980 the California Department of Fish and Game found widespread contamination at Point Isabel and Santa Fe Land Improvement was ordered to do a massive clean up by the San Francisco Bay Water Control Board and the Contra Costa County Department of Health Services. Beginning in 1985, the cleanup took 14 months as the company removed battery casings, contaminated soil, and implemented infrastructure that would both prevent lead from leaching into the bay and monitor the site’s groundwater levels. They also brought in specially prepared soil to create a cap over the landfill, and installed rocks to prevent shoreline erosion.
The fenced-off area just north of the public restrooms at the Rydin Road end of the park is dirt that was dug more recently when the restrooms were installed. The dirt pile tested positive for high levels of contaminants and was fenced off, planted, and is permanently off-limits. Other small areas of North Point Isabel have been fenced off either because they tested positive for lead or zinc or to prevent further erosion of the clay cap and edges of the landfill.
In 2008 Richmond’s Planning Commission voted to rezone Point Isabel in order to accommodate a Kohl’s department store and 400 additional parking spots. The year prior, in 20017, Kohl’s leased property at Point Isabel with plans to open a 99,011 square foot department store. The land was zoned as light industrial which minimizes the impact on adjacent wildlife habitats such as the Hoffmann canal and the Richmond-Albany mudflats. In order to build the store, Richmond needed to zone the area for commercial development which much of the community was against as they wanted to preserve the shoreline while minimizing the industrial footprint. In February 2008 Kohl’s dropped out, citing economic reasons. Five months later, the city of Richmond issued a draft general plan to rezone most of Point Isabel as regional commercial mixed use. This would allow companies such as Kohl’s to build without public hearing.
The park has seen many improvements over the years, including the building of permanent buildings for the Mudpuppy's Tub & Scrub dog wash and adjacent Sit & Stay Café; permanent bathrooms on both ends of the park (Isabel Street and Rydin Road); trail repaving on the Point Isabel side; and parking lot repaving and restriping. The bridge across the Hoffman Channel was reinforced in 2019 to ensure it could hold emergency vehicles on the adjacent Bay Trail (along the Hoffman Marsh). The informal launching area for nonmotorized watercraft (primarily windsurfers and kayaks) was significantly improved around 2018, including shoring up the edges of the landfill, installing a pea gravel area for windsurfers to stage their equipment, a broad, concrete ramp to the water's edge, and paved sidewalks out to the launch area.
Park usage has increased exponentially from an estimated 500,000 human visitors in 2000 to some 1,500,000 by the early 2020s, according to EBRPD estimates. It is used heavily by people walking dogs but also by walkers, joggers, windsurfers, kayakers, photographers, birdwatchers, and picnickers. A few years ago it underwent some US $500,000 worth of capital improvements, including new irrigation systems and turf, foxtail removal, trail repavement, picnic sites and café seating. That was funded by a portion of US $225 million collected by Measure AA (1998)
Point Isabel regularly makes the list of the top best places in the U.S. to walk dogs off-leash. It was named the number one dog park by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 2006.
It is named for the natural promontory of Point Isabel, which was itself named for landowner Don Víctor Castro's daughter Isabel., Point Isabel, retrieved July 31, 2007 The Castros operated Rancho San Pablo, with an adobe home that stood where El Cerrito Plaza is today. From their dock at Point Isabel they ferried cattle, hides, and beef to Mission Dolores and then to booming San Francisco during and after the Gold Rush. Between 1951 and 1959, the original hilly peninsula was leveled by Santa Fe Railway to make way for the Stege sewage plant (now EBMUD's stormwater treatment plant) and a business park. For many years an El Cerrito crockery company, TEPCO, dumped its seconds and shards along the shoreline near the sewage treatment plant. Shards of broken pottery are still frequently found along the western shoreline.
The remains of Laci Peterson washed up at Point Isabel in 2003, and those of her unborn son, Connor, were found a short distance north along the shoreline.
Environmental concerns A portion of Point Isabel, locally known as TEPCO beach, is covered in thousands of pieces of broken ceramic dishware. The Technical Porcelain and Chinaware Company (TEPCO) was founded in 1918 and grew substantially until the death of its founder, John Pagliero, in 1968. During the span of these fifty years, TEPCO discarded their broken dishware along the banks of Point Isabel.
Point Isabel served as a dumping ground for lead-filled battery casings, thus creating toxic emissions from within the soil. Thousands of tons of soil was removed from this site in the 1970s and 1980s, which was supposed to have resolved the issue. However, in 2018, lead leaks have proved that the job was not entirely completed in the 1970s and 1980s. The source of the recent lead leaks has not been discovered.
TEPCO factories “churned out 30,000 pieces every day” to create the beach full of porcelain and pottery shards. According to Dave Weinstein, the president of the El Cerrito Historical Society, the managers of the land “encouraged all kinds of people to come and dump whatever they wanted to make land” for the area, which TEPCO contributed greatly to by dumping all the dishware. In a way, creating the land with otherwise landfill-bound dishware is a form of reusing. However, the environmental concerns of this TEPCO dump site remain a problem for locals. According to Schwartz with KQED, Point Isabel used to be a hill with trees. Only when the former owner of the land, Santa Fe Railroad, decided to fill in the “part of the bay near Point Isabel to build an industrial park,” it became a dumping ground. In fact, nobody was bothered by the dumping until the late 1960s, when the environmental organization Save the Bay started fighting to stop the “amount of infill going on around the Bay.” Because of the remaining prevalence of the dishware, Point Isabel remains a location of contention for environmentalists.
Overview
The park is located along the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay in the East Bay region of the Bay Area and is administered by East Bay Regional Park District. The park consists of two halves of roughly equal size—Point Isabel and North Point Isabel—separated by the narrow Hoffman Channel. Hoffman Channel is the outlet of Fluvius Innominatus creek from its mouth at the edge of its delta, Hoffman MarshBaxter Creek & Fluvius Innominatus Topo, 1995, Museum of California, retrieved September 17, 2007 The shoreline of the entire park is lined with boulders, broken concrete blocks, and other riprap.Point Isabel map side, East Bay Regional Parks District, retrieved August 26, 2007
The northern shore of the park against Hoffman Channel was formerly a sandy beach and has been modified from its original state by leveling and in-filling of the surrounding mudflats, tidal flats and other wetlands. The rest of the peninsula consists of the Bay Trail, a water treatment facility, radio towers, a US Postal Service facility, a Costco store, and office buildings. The parkland has an elevation of 16–25 feet (5–8 meters).
The park is open between 5 am and 10 pm PST; admission and parking are free, as stipulated by the lease agreement.News and Announcements , PIDO, July 17, 2007, retrieved July 31, 2007 The park is wheelchair accessible although the path around the perimeter of North Point Isabel is rough.
Point Isabel features two concessions: Mudpuppy's Tub and Scrub, which is a dog grooming retail store and outlet, and the Sit & Stay Café, which offers hot and cold drinks and light food.
The park offers striking panoramic views of Marin County, San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bay Bridge. The 3.2 miles (5.1 km) of flat trails are generally wheelchair accessible and stroller friendly on the south side of the footbridge. The trails on North Point Isabel are dirt or gravel/old asphalt. The San Francisco Bay Trail wraps around Point Isabel Regional Shoreline.
The park supplies bags for picking up animal waste. These bags cost the EBRPD about US$34,000 annually, to which the Point Isabel Dog Owners group contributes.