As residents of the Bay Area, I’m inspired to know we continue to share a common bond through San Francisco Bay, despite our social distancing. The wave that breaks against the shoreline in Tiburon is made of the same water that nourishes the wetlands of Redwood City.
Even as the Baykeeper office is closed, and special events and trash cleanups are postponed, our staff continues to tackle the biggest threats to the Bay’s health and keep our wildlife and communities safe from polluters.
In a new lawsuit, Governor Newsom is pushing back against a water grab by the Trump administration. But at the same time, Newsom’s agencies are working to enact eerily similar moves at the state level.
It all goes back to how California’s precious fresh water supply is allocated.
In a typical year, more than half of the fresh water headed for San Francisco Bay never gets here—instead, it’s diverted to industrial agricultural operations and cities across the state. This unsustainable practice has pushed the Bay and Delta to the brink of collapse.
I hope this message finds you and your loved ones happy and well—and adjusting to our new (temporary) reality of sheltering in place and limiting social contact to beat COVID-19.
One of the largest horse boarding facilities in the country lies on the banks of the Petaluma River (pictured, above). For years, there's been nothing to stop the horse manure from flowing straight into the river and downstream to San Francisco Bay.
Manure runoff contains unlawfully high levels of bacteria, nitrogen, ammonia, phosphorus, and toxins, all of which are hazardous to public health and wildlife.
Baykeeper’s field team has been busy investigating the causes of pollution to South Bay creeks and rivers that feed into San Francisco Bay. During the last few rainy seasons, our scientists spent many weeks scrambling down hillsides and wading into mud to collect water samples from storm drain outfalls.
We got surprising results. The water samples from the cities of Sunnyvale and Mountain View contained bacteria pollution at levels 50 times higher than the legal limits. The samples revealed especially dangerous levels of E. Coli from raw sewage.
Our Field Investigator, Cole, recently received an unusual report to our pollution hotline: a tipster claimed that after concerts and basketball games, cleanup crews around Chase Center were washing debris like trash and confetti straight into storm drains that lead to San Francisco Bay.
Chase Center has a capacity of nearly 20,000 fans. As these crowds empty onto the sidewalk after nightly events, they generate significant amounts of litter.
Future sea level rise poses a major threat to Alameda, a low-lying island in San Francisco Bay. Alameda’s shoreline neighborhoods will face a high risk of flooding, and rising tides could wash pollution into the Bay from contaminated shoreline sites.
That’s why Baykeeper advocated for the Alameda Recreation and Parks Commission to prioritize a proposal to remove pavement from a portion of the city’s shoreline—a project aptly named DePave Park.
Future sea level rise poses a major threat to Alameda, a low-lying island in San Francisco Bay. Alameda’s shoreline neighborhoods will face a high risk of flooding, and rising tides could wash pollution into the Bay from contaminated shoreline sites.
That’s why Baykeeper advocated for the Alameda Recreation and Parks Commission to prioritize a proposal to remove pavement from a portion of the city’s shoreline—a project aptly named DePave Park.
On January 10-12, high tides in San Francisco Bay washed up onto the shoreline of a large former pharmaceutical company in Richmond. A few hours later, the outgoing tide pulled contamination—including pesticides, toxic chemicals, and radioactive waste—off the industrial land and into the Bay.
Right now, this occurs a few times every year during the highest tides, known as King Tides, which are 1 to 2 feet higher than normal high tides. With sea levels rising over the coming decades, however, flooding waters like this could hit polluted shoreline sites every day.
In a bold move, the City of Richmond voted to ban coal storage and handling. This is a huge step forward in the fight to protect local residents and stop dirty coal pollution in San Francisco Bay.
Coal is extremely toxic—both for people and wildlife. It contains arsenic, mercury, and other harmful contaminants, and is a major driver of global climate change when burned for fuel.
