When an oil tanker hit the Bay Bridge Monday morning, no oil got into the Bay, according to the Coast Guard and other agencies investigating the collision. I immediately went to the scene in the Baykeeper boat to observe the situation, along with Baykeeper Program Director Jason Flanders, who took these photos.
The tanker, the Overseas Reymar, damaged the bridge tower’s protective barrier, as shown in the photo at right.
For most people, a rainy forecast means carrying an umbrella—but for our new team of pollution investigators, it’s a call to action. Baykeeper staff members and Volunteer Pollution Investigators are braving rainy weather to find San Francisco Bay’s industrial polluters.
Baykeeper is working to stop Schnitzer Steel, a metal and vehicle recycler on the Oakland Estuary, from allowing airborne dust containing toxic waste to blow into San Francisco Bay.
Schnitzer Steel Oakland processes, shreds, and ships out tens of thousands of tons of scrap metal from automobiles and other sources every year. A recent study of a similar facility found that dust falling onto nearby and downwind areas contained lead, copper, iron, zinc, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic, among many other pollutants.
Removing Unsustainable Amounts of Sand from San Francisco Bay Disrupts Habitat, Causes Ocean Beach to Erode
Contact:
Ian Wren, Staff Scientist, San Francisco Baykeeper, 415-856-0444 Ext. 108, ian@baykeeper.org
(San Francisco, CA)—San Francisco Baykeeper has filed a lawsuit against the State of California over its decision to approve an Environmental Impact Report allowing unprecedented rates of sand mining in the Bay. Excessive sand mining disrupts the Bay’s ecosystem and contributes to erosion of Ocean Beach.
Charity Navigator, the nation’s leading evaluator of nonprofit organizations’ financial performance, has awarded San Francisco Baykeeper its second consecutive top 4-star rating.
“Only 17% of the charities we rate have received at least two consecutive 4-star evaluations, indicating that San Francisco Baykeeper outperforms most other charities in America,” wrote Charity Navigator President and CEO Ken Berger, in a letter announcing the award.
Five years ago on the morning of November 7, the 900-foot container ship Cosco Busan left Oakland, in heavy fog with low visibility. It side-swiped a Bay Bridge tower, ripping open two fuel tanks and pouring more than 53,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay.
Some noteworthy research findings about water quality in San Francisco Bay have recently been released in an annual publication by local scientists and regulators. Here are some highlights:
San Francisco Baykeeper recommends a Yes vote on Berkeley’s Measure M. This bond measure will provide funds to reduce rainy-season pollution that runs off Berkeley’s streets and into San Francisco Bay.
During storms, rain rushes across roads, driveways, sidewalks, and roofs, picking up trash, oil, pesticides and other pollutants. In Berkeley, as in most Bay Area communities, the contaminated rainwater zooms down a storm drain into a concrete culvert that dumps it—unfiltered and untreated—into creeks or the Bay itself.
Baykeeper recommends you vote Yes on Proposition 37, the statewide initiative that requires genetically engineered food sold in California to be labeled. Prop 37’s passage will empower Californians to choose whether or not to eat food and drink beverages containing genetically engineered ingredients. Right now, food manufacturers are allowed to keep secret the presence of genetically modified ingredients in their products.