Oakland—San Francisco Baykeeper joined a coalition of environmental and social jsutice organizations to oppose Dennis Herrera as next San Francisco Public Utilities Commission general manager, and delivered a statement today outling their opposition to San Francisco Mayor London Breed and SFPUC president Sophie Maxwell.
The groups' opposition springs from a May 14 SFPUC lawsuit that attacks state environmental protections for the Tuolumne River, based on a Trump-era weakening of the Clean Water Act. City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed the lawsuit and has vocally supported the SFPUC’s anti-environmental positions. Herrera has also been named by Mayor London Breed as her pick to be the next SFPUC general manager. The city’s lawsuit challenges the state’s authority to protect rivers and streams in California by leveraging a Trump era rule weakening the Clean Water Act. The SFPUC has chosen to oppose protections for the Bay, the Tuolumne River and salmon fishing jobs, rather than to upgrade San Francisco’s water supply to make it more sustainable and resilient to climate change.