When you think of the holidays, Bay pollution probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But every year, celebratory meals worsen sewage pollution in San Francisco Bay.
Holiday cooking tends to generate a lot of fatty waste in the form of leftover cooking oils and greasy pans. When dumped down the sink or garbage disposal, fats harden in the wastewater pipes running between Bay Area homes and sewage facilities.
The Bay Area is experiencing a desperate housing crisis. But instead of building safe, dense housing on infill sites, as many experts recommend, yet another city is attempting to build on a toxic flood-zone.
The proposed “Mowry Village” site in Newark lies in a designated FEMA floodplain with a high risk of liquefaction on a known toxic site containing heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and volatile organic compounds. There could hardly be a worse place for people to live.
When I was little and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my immediate answer was “a dancer!” I loved to dance and took ballet, jazz, tap, and modern dance classes for many years, aspiring to one day dance backup for Janet Jackson. And even though I danced through college—adding swing and salsa to my repertoire—I realized that was one dream that wouldn’t come true.
Today SF Baykeeper, Sierra Club, Public Justice, and several other environmental and public health organizations filed a petition for rulemaking with the EPA, calling upon the agency to stop harmful coal pollution from open-top trains carrying coal by requiring coal train operators to obtain a permit for their water pollution.
As multiple California fish species teeter on the brink of extinction, and both commercial and recreational fisheries face imminent collapse, a new project threatens to push them over the edge.
The proposed Sites dams project—a series of diversions and dams in the Sacramento Valley—would divert more water from the Sacramento River, reducing fresh water flowing to San Francisco Bay.
As the plane rose into the sky, I looked out my window eagerly anticipating the beautiful sparkling Bay views. But instead, the water was murky and reddish-brown.
It was the end of July, and Baykeeper had just received the summer's first hotline reports of a suspected algae bloom along the East Bay shoreline. But flying out of SFO, I could also see discolored water along the Bay's western shore.
Oakland, CA—The music video release of Grammy-nominated artist RyanNicole’s “Small but Mighty” is the result of an innovative collaboration between two Bay Area nonprofits. SF Baykeeper, the Oakland-based non-profit legal watchdog organization that confronts corporate polluters, and the Oakland-based social justice–infused arts education org Hip Hop for Change, Inc (HH4C).
Baykeeper drone shot of the Chevron spill in February, 2021
In early 2021, Richmond residents called Baykeeper’s pollution hotline to report a strange sheen on the Bay and a noxious smell in the air. Turns out, they had discovered an oil spill at Chevron’s loading dock. Unfortunately, Chevron itself was unaware that its oil was polluting the Bay until locals reported it.