Did you know this year marks the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day? My staff would normally be tabling at festivals around the Bay Area, organizing volunteers at shoreline trash cleanups and hosting happy hours at local restaurants to toast the Bay we love. Yet here we are instead, celebrating the Earth inside […]
During the last few rainy seasons, Baykeeper’s scientists spent many weeks scrambling down hillsides and wading into mud to collect water samples from storm drain outfalls. Our field team was looking for the source of pollution to South Bay creeks and rivers that feed into San Francisco Bay. We got surprising results. The water samples […]
Last month, 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 […]
BY SEJAL CHOKSI-CHUGH I’ve heard locals describe a film of black dust on cars, windowsills and playground structures in the City of Richmond. Sadly, it’s often coal dust. And it’s toxic—linked to asthma, heart disease, and other illnesses. When it rains, that toxic dust can get washed and blown into San Francisco Bay, where it […]
BY SEJAL CHOKSI-CHUGH What I saw on the San Francisco Bay shoreline that day worried me. I asked Robert, our volunteer skipper, to maneuver the Baykeeper boat closer. Since the last time we’d been to the site, more heavy industrial equipment had piled up near the water. And more barges were crowding the dock. It […]