The US Supreme Court is wading into the mess of San Francisco’s wastewater and sewage treatment controversy, and will take the case in which SF sued the EPA over how much sewage they can allow into the Pacific Ocean.

There were a few times during the rainy months of this past winter when trash would appear on some SF beaches near the ocean. Some have alleged that trash was overflow from the city’s water treatment “outfall” points, and that it also contained some degree of sewage.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state Attorney General, and SF Bay Regional Water Quality Control sure think that SF is allowing sewage to flow into the ocean, and sued the city over this in early May. “Since 2016, San Francisco has discharged more than 1.8 billion gallons of untreated sewage from its combined sewer systems into creeks, San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean,” the EPA said when announcing that lawsuit.

But the City of San Francisco had already sued the EPA right back, over the exact same issue. San Francisco did not fare well in that lawsuit, with the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the EPA last year and saying the agency could penalize San Francisco for being out of compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. But San Francisco appealed yet again, and the Chronicle now reports the US Supreme Court agreed to take up the case on Tuesday.  

The case is known as San Francisco v. EPA.

The city argues that they're trying to comply with the Clean Water Act, but the EPA sets standards that are too vague to follow. "The EPA is trying to tell [water treatment facility] permit holders they may not cause 'too much' pollution, without first telling us what 'too much' is," a city spokesperson told Reuters in a Tuesday statement. "We are asking for clear requirements to protect water quality so we can follow them."

That may be, but it is admittedly odd that very liberal San Francisco is suing the EPA and asking for less strict standards when it comes to protecting the environment. And it is not a very San Francisco look when amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs are being filed on behalf of San Francisco by trade groups with names like American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.  

That’s because this is expected to be an impactful, precedent-setting decision that affects many cities and industries that, you know, allow things to flow into the ocean.

So if the City of San Francisco is suing, and the case was just taken up by the Supreme Court, does that mean SF City Attorney David Chiu will be arguing a case before the Supreme Court? Not likely. While Chiu’s name does appear front and center on the case’s petition to the Supreme Court, we also see on that document that the city has retained two big-deal law firms in New York City and Washington, DC. So it would probably be those attorneys appearing in front of the court,

The case is expected to be heard in October, with the Supreme Court likely issuing their ruling next June.

Related: Feds and State Both Sue SF, Claiming the City Lets Sewage Spill Into the Ocean and the Bay [SFist]

Image: Elaine Y. via Yelp

A recent investigation by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) found that the Valero Benicia refinery in southern Solano County has been emitting hazardous levels of toxic chemicals for years — and residents are now upset that the district didn't tell them sooner.

The BAAQMD only went public last month with its findings about high levels of benzene and other POCs (precursor organic compounds) being pumped into the air by the Valero refinery, even though it had first detected the problem in November 2018, nearly three and a half years ago. The district held a community workshop Thursday to discuss the findings, as KPIX reports, and some residents were livid.

"When accidents happen in Benicia, we are never told about it in a timely matter where we can protect ourselves," said resident Pat Toth Smith, per KPIX. "That doesn’t work for those living next to the refinery that wake up to black powder on all of their cars. Kids are going to school and pets are out there breathing this black stuff that’s accumulating everywhere."

Per KQED, the district's report spells out some alarming numbers about POC emissions — which have been shown to cause elevated levels of cancer in humans.

An air district rule limits the release of such compounds to 15 pounds a day and a maximum concentration of 300 parts per million. The district's investigation found that from December 2015 through December 2018, POC emissions averaged 5,200 pounds a day — nearly 350 times the daily limit. The average POC concentration recorded during the first year of that period was 19,148 parts per million, more than 60 times the level set by the agency.

The BAAQMD first issued a notice of violation to Valero in March 2019, based ont he above.

The mayor of Benicia says that the announcement by the district last month was also the first he'd heard about the investigation, or the toxic chemical levels.

"We should have been notified by the air district when this was first discovered in 2019, and certainly while negotiations with Valero were going on," says Mayor Steve Young, who also sits on the city council, speaking to KQED.

A hazardous materials specialist with the county's Environmental Health Division, Chris Ambrose, also tells KQED that his agency "was never formally notified by [the district] or requested to participate in BAAQMD's emissions investigation."

Solano County Health Officer Dr. Bela Matyas, who famously downplayed the workplace dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic to justify keeping offices and businesses open in the early pandemic, tells KQED that he believes most of the toxic chemicals probably blew elsewhere (like Vallejo? the Delta?), but "It doesn't excuse the failure to adhere to standards and it doesn't provide any excuse for the fact that the city of Benicia was put at some risk as a result of these emissions."

Valero only issued a brief statement about the chemicals report, saying, "The Valero Benicia Refinery discovered its hydrogen unit vent had trace contaminants. Valero took immediate steps to address the issue and has been working cooperatively with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District."

Photo: American Public Power Association/Unsplash

Thanks to the South Pacific gyre and humanity's endless supply of discarded plastic, there is an island in the Pacific that has become a particular magnet for waste which a team of scientists recently estimated to be about 17.6 tons worth, or about 38 million individual pieces of trash. As the Associated Press reports, "There were toy soldiers, dominos, toothbrushes and hundreds of hardhats of every shape, size and color," not to mention piles of cigarette lighters and "red motels from the Monopoly board game."

The place is called Henderson Island, an uninhabited six-by-three-mile spit of sand that's part of the Pitcairn Islands group, and researcher Dr. Jennifer Lavers from the University of Tasmania led a group of six others on a study that took three and a half months in 2015, combing the beaches and documenting all that they found. They also cleared a patch of beach and recorded how much trash washed up on it in 24 hours, coming to the estimate that more than 13,000 pieces arrive on the island every day, most of it plastic.

As Lavers explains in the introduction to her study on plastic pollution, "For years we’ve heard about the North Pacific Gyre (or Garbage Patch) where there is up to 40x more plastic in the ocean than plankton... But what most people don’t realize is the North Pacific Garbage Patch is not the only one of its kind. There are at least five others, fed by more than 20 million items that enter the world’s oceans each and every day."

Lavers has been so appalled by her own research that she herself uses a bamboo toothbrush (the most common trash item found on Henderson island), and a bamboo iPhone case. "We need to drastically rethink our relationship with plastic," she tells the AP. "It's something that's designed to last forever, but is often only used for a few fleeting moments and then tossed away."

She notes that thousands of Laysan Albatross chicks have died from ingesting plastics, and more than 690 other marine species are known to ingest them as well, including fish and sea birds, likely leading to documented declines in their populations.

Lavers is hoping that studies like this can help clean up the problem by better understanding the patterns of where our garbage accumulates most. "It's time to reconsider the infamous quote 'Garbage Patch the size of Texas' and start thinking outside the box," she writes. "Unlike Texas, ocean basins do not have boundaries. Our garbage is everywhere."

For 50 years, St. Louis-based chemical company Monsanto contaminated the San Francisco Bay with its production of the highly toxic chemical polychlorinated biphenyl, a.k.a. PCBs. The company continued manufacturing the chemical even after it recognized some of the dangers associated with PCBs, until a 1979 ban by Congress forced it to stop. The half century plus of pollution has left the city of Oakland with a cleanup bill estimated at $1 billion, and Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker thinks Monsanto should cover the costs. Parker yesterday filed a lawsuit against the global behemoth, and she intends to make them pay.

“The company that is responsible for this vast contamination should bear the burden of cleaning up our environment, not the taxpayers of Oakland and California,” Parker said in a statement released yesterday.

Today, PCBs are found throughout the Bay — damaging marine habitats and causing cancer in both animals and humans.

Previous to the 1979 ban, PCBs produced by Monsanto were used in a wide variety of products including building materials, paints, and various electrical equipment.

Think Progress reports that a 1970 internal Monsanto memo alerted the company's employees that PCBs had been found to be a highly toxic pollutant. Despite this, Monsanto continued to manufacture the chemical.

This lawsuit follows similar suits filed by the cities of San Jose, Spokane (Washington), and San Diego against the company.

"Monsanto knew that its products posed a significant threat to human and environmental health around the world," wrote Parker. "However, the company chose profits over protecting people, and American cities and citizens are still suffering the consequences.”

Related: Is San Francisco Rec & Parks Giving Your Dog Cancer?

by Eric Wuestewald

On Tuesday, fifty fisherman and a single Marina property owner filed a formal complaint against PG&E claiming their former refineries had poured some truly nasty stuff into the Bay over the last century.

The complaint alleges the utility giant and occasional exploder of cul de sacs dumped toxic chemicals from a handful of gas plants 100 years ago, affecting a massive 50 acres of residential and tourist areas and harming local herring populations near the Marina and Fisherman's Wharf. And, the suit claims, the damage is ongoing and requires a concerted cleanup.

As reported by the Examiner, Stuart Gross, the plaintiff's attorney, claims the chemicals, known as poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, can drastically affect local marine life. "Testing after the 2007 Cosco Busan [oil spill] established conclusively that exposure to even small amounts of poly-aromatic hydrocarbons virtually ensures that the fertilized herring egg or larvae will die."

In an interview with KPIX 5, Gross adds that PG&E has known about the problem "since the 70s. They've been doing piecemeal [cleanup] and avoiding some major questions."

PG&E says they've been working on the issue and communicating with residents, with spokesperson Nicole Liebelt claiming the successful investigation of 23 and remediation of six Marina properties.

It's worth noting that the lawsuit doesn't ask for any financial compensation, merely a full investigation and cleanup.

And of course, PG&E remains embroiled in a $1 billion federal lawsuit relating to the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion, and they're facing another $1.4 billion in fines from the Public Utilities Commission over that as well.

Nine percent of California's beaches were unsafe for swimming at some point last year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)'s nationwide report "Testing the Waters 2014." That's one percent better than the rest of America's bacterial beaches, on average, so woo.

Nevertheless, there are still some beaches in the Bay Area that are, on occasion, not specifically too good (see list below).

According to the report, many local beaches, for example most of Ocean Beach, are generally bacteria-free, but other beaches frequently tested poorly, particularly on the Bay, where the waters are stiller. The NRDC report explains that stormwater pollution and "untreated sewage spills and overflows are also frequently to blame."

The report uses the EPA's Beach Action Value (BAV) safety threshold, which examines bacteria levels (a.k.a. raw sewage and fertilizer runoff) in beach water samples.

Each beach in the report was tested multiple times last year, and the percentage given to each represents the number of times the beach exceeded the EPA's BAV safety threshold last year.

Here's the list of the beaches that the EPA deemed most unsafe for swimming.

• Parkside Aquatic Park (San Mateo County): 64 percent
• Lakeshore Park (San Mateo County): 48 percent
• Candlestick Point at Windsurfer Circle (San Francisco): 47 percent
• Mitchells Cove Beach (Santa Cruz County): 42 percent
• Capitola Beach west of jetty (Santa Cruz County): 33 percent
• McNears Beach (Marin County): 32 percent
• Baker Beach, Lobos Creek at lower parking lot (San Francisco): 28 percent
• Pillar Point near West Point Avenue (San Mateo County): 28 percent
• Kiteboard Beach (San Mateo County): 23 percent
• Candlestick Point at Sunnydale Cove (San Francisco): 22 percent

"The overall trend is that there's a substantial pollution problem," Noah Garrison, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council's water program, tells SF Gate. You can click through all the test results on the NRDC's report here.

Don't even think about lighting a fire in that fireplace tonight!

It's the first Spare the Air day of the winter season today, as announced by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and this means no "burning of wood, manufactured fire logs or any other solid fuel, both indoors and outdoors for 24 hours."

Spare the Air days are intended to keep particulate matter levels within healthy ranges, and everyone is expected to comply, including residents and businesses with fireplaces and wood-burning ovens.

Last winter, the air district received 2,316 wood smoke complaints from snitching neighbors, and of those complaints, a total of 178 $100 tickets were issued.

We imagine this guy will be pulling out his video camera from his high-rise apartment above Kokkari to prove that the restaurant continues running its wood-burning ovens and fireplace on Spare the Air Days. And though restaurants are supposed to comply, we're guessing that all the trendy spots that now use wood grills and ovens as a central mode of food prep, including Cotogna, Una Pizza Napoletana, Lolinda, and the brand new TBD, will be trying to skirt this alert much like Kokkari does, for business reasons. Luckily most of them are closed on Monday!

Should you care to lodge a complaint about your neighbors, you can do so here.

Yesterday while most of us were sweating it out on public transit on a particularly warm Spare the Air day, a San Francisco Shell gas station was giving away full tanks of gas to some 240 motorists in the Mission. Thanks to the unfortunate confluence of Shell's marketing machine and yesterday's breezeless day, the two events collided to give the Examiner a story on possible corporate misbehavior.

Hugo Cerna, manager of the Shell Station at Mission and Dolores, told the Examiner, "I don’t think anyone at Shell knew this was a Spare the Air Day." A spokesman from the Air Quality Management district also weighed in, sputtering: "We really like to discourage people from driving alone on a Spare the Air Day. So having a free gas event is something we’d rather not have gas station do.”

During the giveaway, Mission Shell gave away 15 gallons each to 240 customers. That works out to 3,600 gallons of free gas or roughly 35 tons of CO2 emissions, if we're talking pollution. But, really... who's counting?

[SFEx]
[EPA]

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has issued the a Spare the Air Smog Alert for tomorrow, Wednesday, September 7. While no free-transit magic will happen tomorrow -- or, quite possibly, ever again -- the Air District urges residents to drive less and reduce their energy use in an effort to lower pollutions levels while temperatures rise.

And look! The Air District gave us a list of clean air choices the public can make in order to live cleaner, more breathable lives. Check it:

• Bike to work or around town


• Take public transit


• Work at home or telecommute


• Carpool and link your errands to reduce driving


• Avoid using gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers


• Reduce household energy use


• Don’t use lighter fluid on the barbecue


• Avoid using aerosol spray cleaners, paints and hairspray

For more information, visit SpareTheAir.org.

The Coast Guard is currently broadcasting warnings and preventing some vessels from entering the Oakland estuary until a container that fell off a ship Saturday night can be located underwater. The container got knocked off a ship's deck by a crane around 8:30 p.m., and divers are now headed out to try to locate it. Given the shallow depth and the size of the thing, we figure this won't take long. Hope that container wasn't full of shampoo or something more toxic! [Examiner]

CBS reports: "President Barack Obama said the United States, China and several other countries reached a 'unprecedented breakthrough' Friday to curb greenhouse gas emissions -- including a mechanism to verify compliance -- after a frenzied day of diplomacy at the U.N. climate talks." The agreement also includes "developing nations" India, South Africa, and Brazil.

While transferring oil from a barge to an oil tanker a little after 6:30 a.m. this morning, oil spilled into the San Francisco Bay this morning, leaving a big sheen. (Ugh.)

According to SFGate, "There is a one-mile sheen on the bay coming from the tanker the Dubai Star and the barge, which are anchored about 2 1/2 miles south of the Bay Bridge, Coast Guard Petty Officer Erik Swanson said.

"We're not sure exactly what happened," Swanson told SFGate. "It's hard to determine how much oil is in the water because a little oil can spread over a large area of water, but this is bunker fuel, which is a little heavier."

The oil (bunker fuel) is the same kind of oil that spilled into the Bay during the infamous Cosco Busan spill of 2007, where somewhere around 50,000 gallons of fuel polluted the Bay, coastal areas, and wildlife.

Noting that today's warm weather throughout most of the Bay Area is simply unbearable, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has declared today a Spare the Air Day. "Hot temperatures and light winds are expected to produce unhealthy air throughout the region, so the district is encouraging commuters to drive less, take public transit, walk, bike, carpool, link necessary trips and postpone errands, if possible," reports CBS 5. And, as always, there will be NO free transit. (Alas.)