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

The EPA, state Attorney General, and SF Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board just dropped a combined lawsuit onto the City of San Francisco, claiming the city has allowed “more than 1.8 billion gallons of untreated sewage” to flow each year into the Bay and Pacific Ocean

We noted a couple times over the course of this year’s winter months that trash was appearing of SF beaches after heavy storms, which is regrettably a normal occurrence after significant rainfall, and that partially treated sewage could be intermingled with this trash. That may have been because the city’s combined sewer system outflows put rainwater runoff and treated sewage into the same flow, and that could accumulate some trash when the pipes are particularly backed up.

But the SF Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) pushed back against the assertion that trash was flowing out of their outflows, with a spokesperson telling SFGate in January that those outflows “did not have any of those types of outfall discharges near Fort Funston or Ocean Beach during the storms last weekend,” and that “Trying to blame our system for trash in those locations appears to be inaccurate.”

Yet now the SF Examiner reports on a new lawsuit from the EPA, California Attorney General, and SF Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board that accuses the city of allowing sewage to flow into the SF Bay And Pacific Ocean, and alleges that the outflow system is in disrepair.

The full lawsuit accuses SF of “repeated and widespread failures to operate its two combined stormwater-sewer systems and sewage treatment plants in compliance with the law and its permits, and in a manner that keeps untreated sewage off the streets and beaches of San Francisco.” It also alleges that “The City’s failures to comply with its permits or properly operate its system significantly increases the risk that members of the public, including, for example, surfers, swimmers, and others recreating on beaches, unknowingly come into contact with untreated sewage, which contains pathogens and high enterococci and E.coli bacteria levels.”

The suit additionally claims that SF has allowed an average of 1.8 billion gallons of untreated sewage to flow into these water bodies each year since 2016.

“San Francisco’s aging wastewater system has exposed the public to risks for too long,” SF Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board chair Alexis Strauss said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “This is the time to commit to an outcome which reduces sewage overflows and builds upgraded wastewater infrastructure. Our goal is to help San Francisco achieve a healthy Bay and coastline, which can be enjoyed by millions of residents and visitors every day."

The city operates two wastewater treatment plants in the Bayview District, plus one near Lake Merced, which some jokers tried to get named after George W. Bush in a 2008 political stunt.

For their part, the SFPUC told the Examiner that the lawsuit would be “costly and unfair” to SF taxpayers. SFPUC spokesperson Nancy Crowley also told the paper that “Partnership and support from the federal and state government would be more helpful than costly and counterproductive litigation.”

The SF City Attorney’s Office was also displeased with the lawsuit. “The EPA prefers to threaten communities with enormous fines and costly litigation in lieu of working in partnership with the nation’s cities,” spokesperson Jen Kwart told the Examiner. “SFPUC stands ready to work collaboratively with EPA to achieve cost-effective solutions, just as it has for the past seven years.”

This is not the only lawsuit against the city regarding wastewater treatment, but it may be the most serious. The environmental group SF Baykeeper sued the city in March for allegedly allowing wastewater to flow into Mission Creek; and last August, a group of homeowners (including former 49ers QB Joe Montana) also sued the city for storm drain overflow that they claimed brought untreated sewage water into their homes.

Related: Trash and Debris Showing Up Again On SF Beaches, As It Often Does After Rainstorms [SFist]

Image: SFPUC

A high-powered group of San Francisco residents is taking legal action against the city after their homes were allegedly deluged with sewage during the New Year's storms.

Legendary former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana and real estate mogul Victor Makras are among the more than 58 plaintiffs suing, according to FOX. These are reportedly 58 residents of the affluent bayside Marina Boulevard, between Webster Street and Baker Street.

They contend that the holiday flooding could have been avoided had the city taken measures to repair and upgrade nearby wastewater facilities, which have been linked to previous flooding episodes in the area, according to the Chronicle.

"The part of this system that runs through the Marina is antiquated and has been neglected and inadequately maintained by the city and county of San Francisco," the lawsuit asserts, per the Chronicle. "As a result, the system routinely gets overwhelmed, overflows, and inundates plaintiffs’ properties and neighborhood with untreated sewage and contaminated water."

San Francisco's sanitary system collects both sewage and stormwater in the same network of pipes — usually then treated and discharged back to the Bay or the Pacific Ocean — but during heavy rain, storm drains can overflow with water that’s been contaminated. A reported 18.6 million gallons of untreated or partially treated wastewater overflowed from the city's sewer system onto the streets during the torrential atmospheric river event that hit the Bay over December 31st and January 1st.

These multimillionaire plaintiffs in the low-lying Marina district say that some of this sewage water breached their homes, “permeating the soils, walls and floors, and depositing highly contaminated and toxic fecal and other raw sewage matter in and around Plaintiffs’ homes." They reportedly initially filed damage claims with the city, but after these were denied, they sued.

In response, Jen Kwart, spokeswoman for the Office of the City Attorney, emphasized the extraordinary nature of the New Year's Eve storm. "It was the strongest storm to hit San Francisco in more than 170 years," she noted, as the Standard reported. "The storm, and not the city’s infrastructure, was responsible for widespread flooding throughout the city. We are reviewing the complaint and will respond in court."

One of the main issues, according to the lawsuit, was that a facility in the Marina designed to divert excess water into the Bay instead of allowing it to escape through manholes onto the streets, was closed in 2021. Since then, more flooding in the neighborhood occurred. Not to mention, the city settled a $4.4 million lawsuit in 2020 regarding sewage during flooding in 2014, as the Examiner reported at the time.

The extreme rains over this past winter have prompted new plans to reduce flooding damages, such as the SFPUC's earmarking of $9 billion in capital improvements over the next decade and an announcement in May of new federal loans for infrastructure in frequently flooded neighborhoods, according to the Chronicle. But the battle between aggrieved homeowners and the city's authorities over these sewage and flooding issues continues, with potentially far-reaching implications for San Francisco's aging infrastructure.

Feature image of Marina District via Unsplash/Flemming Fuchs.

It is not a good time to visit the Contra Costa County city of Martinez, as a burst sewer pipe has spewed more than 12,000 gallons of unpleasantness that’s bubbling up through the city’s storm drains.

You’ve got to feel for Martinez, a sunny East Bay community that is generally mostly in the news for petroleum refinery fires. But those incidents might be preferable to what Martinez is currently going through now, and for once, it’s not the refinery’s fault. The Chronicle reports that a burst pipe has spilled 12,500 gallons of raw sewage about Martinez, which is coming up through storm drains throughout the town.

The trouble started Monday at the PBF Refinery (formerly the Shell refinery) on Pacheco Boulevard. The spill did not initially seem as large as it was. A Tuesday report from the Mount View Sanitary District said that “a refinery had sewage coming out of a storm drain due to unknown reasons but possibly due to a broken pipe. Spill has been stopped but not contained with waterways impacted.”

But as we see above, the spill was vastly worse than initially thought. The Mount View Sanitary District determined it was a burst pipe beneath Pacheco Boulevard, which they’ve identified and bypassed. Crews are fixing the pipe, which is expected to take at least through the weekend,  but at least there is no further spewage or spillage at this time.

The problem is that 12,500 gallons that already did spill. According to the Chronicle, “District workers are collecting the sewage in trucks from nearby storm drains and bringing it to the Martinez sewage plant for treatment.” One hopes those people are being paid well.

The cleanup is expected to be completed by late Thursday. Signs have reportedly been posted alerting residents, and they're encouraged to avoid surface water for obvious reasons.

Related: Basement Of Ruby Skye And Slide Flooded With Raw Sewage, Ex-Employee Claims In Video

Image: Sincerely Media via Unsplash

The effects of climate change are chipping away at the coast hard enough that the Oceanside (sewage) Treatment Plant is at risk of being itself flushed into the Pacific Ocean.  

Those of you who were in San Francisco in the late 2000s may remember a whimsical protest ballot measure effort to name a sewage plant after George W. Bush. That measure was defeated, and so the treatment plant that refines our, erm, wastewaters and such and sends them a few miles out to the ocean remains the Oceanside Treatment Plant. But wastewater infrastructure issues are plaguing the city, and the Oceanside plant has the additional problem: the coastline beneath it is literally crumbling away. The city has a plan for this, and the Examiner reports that a coastal erosion plan to save the sewage plant will eliminate about 3,500 feet of the Great Highway near the San Francisco Zoo and require some shoring up of Ocean Beach itself.

For drivers, this will mean detouring about a mile-and-a-half via Skyline and Sloat Boulevards. For surfers and visitors, this means new parking, restrooms, and a coastal trail. And for the sewage facility, this represents a “managed retreat” to position its precious parts as far from the coast as possible for erosion management purposes.  

“This is the first place this will be happening in the state of California. It is a big deal,” SFPUC project manager Anna Roche said at a recent committee hearing on the matter. “We will be removing the Great Highway between Sloat and Skyline. That move triggers a lot of changes.”

Per the Examiner, Roche also noted that shoring up Ocean Beach is vitally necessary to saving the Oceanside plant as storms grow more intense along this stretch of coast and sand gets washed away. "We have experienced 25-year storms where we have lost 40 feet of bluff," Roche told the committee meeting, "and we are currently about 50 feet from that trigger zone."

This being San Francisco, the project is significantly delayed and over budget. The latest estimates are $60 million higher than previously estimated (for a total $151 million project), and a year-and-a-half behind schedule.

Construction does not even begin until 2023, with a targeted completion date of 2027. You have to figure there will be additional time delays tacked on, so the facility may not be at full poop-processing power until nearly the 2030s. In other words, that stretch of Great Highway isn’t going anywhere anytime too soon. But any climate change benefits wouldn’t be realized until about a decade from now either, at which point we may be underwater, burned from acid rain, or evolved into mutants with gills and webbed feet.

Related: San Francisco Spends $16,000 On Jokey Video About Sewage System

Image: Google Street View

By some estimates, at least 30,000 extra people have moved into San Francisco since 2010. Where are we putting them all? That's still being worked out, clearly. But in the meantime, we could be looking at 40,000 newbs by the end of this year, and with this extra-giddy rate of population growth comes some definite growing pains. Exhibit A: This Chron piece from the weekend detailing the city's woefully understaffed 911 system. Good luck getting an ambulance to show up before you bleed out in New San Francisco!

But seriously, we are a relatively small American city of (possibly) 835,000 people (805,000 as of the 2010 Census, and let's just say 10,000 people per year since then, with the official Census estimate for 2012 being 825,000), and adding this many new folks in such a short span of time is causing some serious problems that we'll be trying to fix over the next few years. Add to that the 35 percent population growth by 2040 that's been predicted by the Association of Bay Area Governments. It should be noted that about 28,500 people were added to the city's population in the ten years between the two last censuses, 2000-2010, meaning that growth is happening 70 percent faster during the last three years of this boom than in any of the years of the last decade.

So, fasten your seat belts. And let's walk through the various ways the town is having some trouble handling all these new bodies, with all their new needs, starting with the most obvious one.

The Housing Crisis
I'm not going to beat this dead horse, and we've already been mocked in the national press for dealing the housing shortage by passing laws to limit development. We need more density. Half of the city is practically a suburb of single-family homes if you hadn't noticed, so S.F. is not going to look like Manhattan — or even Brooklyn — anytime soon. (New York grew at a far faster pace well over a century ago.) We can, however, embrace greater density in neighborhoods like the Mission, the Marina, and yes, SoMa, where a ton of new construction is already taking place. In the space of two years, a half dozen vacant lots became mid-rise residential developments in the Castro, and there hasn't been an uproar over that, so that's good. But none of this is going to solve the problem of supply and demand that's driving rents and home prices sky high — as the Examiner noted in this earlier series about the population boom, the median price for a home in San Francisco is more than double what it was in 2000, and we're likely going to be seeing a lot more condos like this one and this one hitting the market with record-breaking per-square-foot prices north of $1,300. What does that number mean? It means you no longer get more for your money in San Francisco compared to New York as we close in on New York City's average per-square-foot price of $1,371.

Meanwhile, Mayor Lee and Supervisor Jane Kim are duking it out to see whose proposal for dealing with the housing crisis wins — with Kim's emphasizing affordability, and Lee's emphasizing growth above all. We don't want to be just a city for the rich and the very poor, right? Because that is what's happening. Nobody who makes a Joe-Average income of $70K or even $100K can afford to buy a home here right now, forget about schoolteachers, chefs, and journalists who make less than that.

Overloaded Emergency Response System
The Chron piece reported that 911 calls have spiked 22 percent since 2007, and Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White says, "There's an additional strain [on the system] I have noticed in the last six, nine, 18 months." Also, the city is falling short of the state-mandated threshold of responding to at least 80 percent of all ambulance calls (two private companies handle the rest), and people are frequently waiting more than 30 or 40 minutes for ambulances to arrive. The Fire Department has a goal of responding within 10 minutes to ambulance calls, but it took a full 13 minutes for them to come to the aid of that toddler who had that statue fall on him near Fisherman's Wharf last month. The boy later died at the hospital from internal bleeding. And then there's the ongoing problem of maintenance of existing ambulances. In the case of that mass shooting at the Gift Center last July, one of the ambulances arriving at the scene had to be taken out of service because its back doors wouldn't open. Not good.

Muni and BART are More Stupidly Crowded Than Before
Muni ridership was up 4 percent in each of the last two years, as Muni reported in January. This explains why rush hours are more intolerable than usual, and why the frustration will continue to grow with all the jerks who won't step into the center of the car when there's plenty of room in there. And, despite the BART strike, ridership on BART last year was higher than ever in its history, and as the Examiner reports, ridership in January was 9.5 percent higher than the previous January, with 1.3 million trips. The problem with Muni ridership going up, of course, is that Muni was hardly able to cope with the ridership they had before the population boom — systemwide rush-hour meltdowns seem to be less frequent, but they still happen — so lord knows the meltdowns to come could only get more epic. As SFMTA director Ed Reiskin was careful to say, in regard to the ridership spike, "While this is encouraging news, we have to continue the work to improve Muni efficiencies, while simultaneously planning for its future growth.” Supervisor Scott Wiener has proposed a $23 million stop-gap measure to boost funding to Muni, as SFStreetsBlog reports, and it's up for approval at the Board of Supes next week.

You Will Never Find Parking, Ever
The advent of apps like MonkeyParking are symptomatic of this becoming a city where drivers will do anything, and pay anything, just to find a parking spot sometimes. As SF Streetsblog earlier noted, drivers in the northeast Mission spend an average of 27 minutes circling for parking, polluting the environment and clogging up traffic in the process. Plans to institute more residential parking permits for local residents probably won't help matters, and when much of the new residential construction is "transit-oriented" and doesn't come with deeded parking spaces, expect the city's parking woes just to get worse and worse until new residents without parking throw in the towel and sell their cars.

Traffic Is Worse Than Ever Before
Anyone remember the glory days after the dot-com bust when you barely had to wait five minutes to get through the Bay Bridge toll plaza? Those days are long gone. Bay Bridge traffic is way up despite peak-hour toll pricing, and a recent report by a Dutch firm on U.S. traffic levels found that S.F. is now second only to L.A. in terms of traffic congestion on our city streets, at 32 percent overall. Thankfully, everything is a lot closer together here, as opposed to everything being a 40-minute drive without traffic like it is in L.A.

You Will Have a Harder Time Getting a Reservation Anywhere
A ton of new restaurants have arrived on the local food scene in the last five years (I earlier wrote about the most notable 10 of them for 7x7), certainly outpacing restaurant closures, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to get a table at Nopa or Frances on short notice. (Forget about State Bird Provisions. For real. Just get in that walk-in line.) OpenTable reports a 6.5 percent increase in the number of seated diners between 2011 and 2013, bumping from 31 million to 33 million in two years, despite using the same estimate for the number of reservation-taking restaurants for both years (2,575 for the greater Bay Area). And if you wanted to get a table for two at Nopa on a Friday anytime in the next two months, good luck — you're probably going to have to pay for one via a terrible website that sells reservations for profit. Yes. That is happening.

Regular Taxis Are Even Harder to Find
It is no wonder that Uber and Lyft are flourishing in San Francisco — according to one UberX driver I recently had, the East Bay has been a little slower to catch up, and more people have cars over there anyway. As we learned recently, some 20 to 25 percent of SF's regular medallioned taxis aren't being driven because cab drivers are fleeing in droves, and/or taking jobs as Uber drivers. Uber meanwhile is helping prospective drivers buy brand new Priuses, and cars continue to be in abundance, even at prime times — though you'll probably have to pay two to three times the going rate under surge pricing. The head of DeSoto cab made the ominous prediction that the regular taxi industry is about 18 months away from total collapse, but the city likely wouldn't let that happen. Still, in these ever populous times, you'd better start adding at least 10 minutes to your ETAs, at all times.

Property Crimes On the Rise
Possibly because of the influx of new residents, and possibly due to a host of factors, petty crime has majorly spiked recently. There were 55,000 total crimes in 2013, a 20 percent increase over 2012, and we were just talking about the spike in car thefts and car break-ins in neighborhoods like Ingleside, North Beach, and Russian Hill. A spike in larcenies last year is attributable, maybe, to the huge presence of easily-grabbable cell phones on public transportation and in the streets. Thankfully, Police Chief Greg Suhr knows that hiring is a top priority, as the Ex has reported, and he's aiming to have a staff of 2,300 to 2,500 officers. There are currently 2,095 officers on the force.

Sewage. Lots More Sewage.
Let's just start by acknowledging that parts of San Francisco's existing sewer system date back to the Gold Rush, so that's scary in and of itself. More people means more poop, and more poop could lead to greater dumping of raw sewage into the Pacific off the S.F. coast. In case you didn't know, our stormwater drains share effluent pipes with wastewater, and when there's an overflow in the system, say, during El Niño-season storms, the excess gets sent out to sea.

Also, the Power Grid Could Collapse
Does everyone remember the California electricity crisis of 2000-2001 and all those fun rolling blackouts? Though the situation then was more complicated and the causes far broader-reaching than a mere spike in population in S.F., there is bound to be a strain put on the existing system especially if climate change starts making the city hotter on more days of the year. Energy consumption for San Francisco County went up 4 percent between 2009 and 2012 (more recent figures weren't available). For their part, and in the wake of the San Bruno disaster, PG&E has pledged $1.5 billion to upgrade transmission lines and replace aging natural gas pipelines with plastic, in order to better prepare for the next earthquake.

So, in summation, things are crowded, life is a bit more inconvenient, and there are more people to compete with for pretty much everything. But, in the good-news column, an earthquake or another major financial collapse could bring rents down for a little while, and calm things down. Always look on the bright side, right?

[Chron]
[Examiner]
[Examiner]

Gross: overnight rains caused several leaky manholes to overflow along the Great Highway at Ocean Beach last night, prompting the SF Public Utilities Commission to temporarily shut down parts of the pedestrian path and the beach itself.

The first (ahem) manhole discharge happened just before 1 a.m. this morning near Lake Merced. Less than half an hour later, two other manholes spilled over at Vincente Street and Lincoln Way, Ocean Beach Bulletin reports. Around the same time another manhole overflowed on the North end of Ocean Beach near Balboa Street.

Although the SF PUC says the discharge is 90% rainwater, the promenade along Great Highway and the beach itself are both closed and signs warning pedestrians have been put in place. The Department of Public Works was on the scene cleaning up and hosing down the sidewalk this morning, but because a portion of the spillage seeped into the sand, the beach won't reopen to public access until the cleanup crews can test for bacteria levels. The beach will likely re-open tomorrow at the earliest.

According to Ocean Beach Bulletin, this occasionally happens after heavy rains like we've had this week because San Francisco's waste treatment system mixes rainwater with wastewater from homes and businesses. Normally that means runoff from the gutters and street drains gets treated before being dumped out into the Pacific, but after heavy rains the city's system overflows and partially treated wastewater spills over.

Anyhow, if you were hoping to take a Thanksgiving stroll along the Pacific, it would be a good idea to check the Water Quality Report right here.

[OceanBeachBulletin]

A sewage spill blanketed the inner Mission with a faint sent of fecal matter this morning. Pipes overflowed due to last night's rain. Ew. Gross. According to KRON 4 Morning News, the scene at 2100 Folsom is "stinky," but has since been cleaned up. Firefighters, Department of Public Works crews, and neighbors helped wipe up the mess.

The early morning crapfest occurred next door to Stable Cafe and two-star Michelin ranked fancypants joint, Saison. Oddly enough, the same area saw similar sewage spills in 2007 and 2009.

Last night's rain caused a power outage in the Sunset District around 8:30 p.m. that left some 5,800 PG&E customers in the dark and knocked out power to part of the city's wastewater treatment system. According to the Ocean Beach Bulletin, without power the treatment system evacuated partly treated wastewater in the waters near Lincoln Way, Vicente Street and Lake Merced. Due to the accidental sewage evacuation, the SF Public Utilities Commission has posted warnings to avoid contact with the waters along Ocean Beach and Fort Funston.

Power was restored to the PG&E Customers before 10 p.m., but no-contact warnings at Ocean Beach and Fort Funston are still in place. If anyone is hoping to get in a St. Patrick's Day surf session, check SFPUC's water quality site first for status updates.

[OceanBeachBulletin]

A woman's prized gold necklace, which she accidentally flushed down the toilet last fall, was returned to her this week by a San Rafael sanitation worker who fished it out of a city sewer pipe. Yes, he washed it off first.

Ann Aulakh of San Rafael says she didn't realize until the next day when her Italian gold Byzantine chain, a gift from her husband twenty years ago, fell off her neck and into the toilet while she was peeing in the middle of the night last October. She was heartbroken, but thought the thing lost for good. A dutiful friend, however, had toured San Rafael's water treatment plant and knew the system wasn't a total mystery. So she left a message for the "jewelry recovery department" at the sanitation district, and a bunch of employees there got a good laugh out of that.

But! Because the message was memorable, when a sanitation worker came across a necklace during a routine cleaning of the sewer pipeline, he knew just who to call. Actually, he delivered the necklace back to Aulakh personally.

Ah, Marin. Land of happy endings. Oh, except for this.

[Marin IJ]

Matier & Ross report on a frightening and malodorous problem caused by San Francisco's low-flow toilets, and it's costing the city millions of dollars. Behold:

Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months.

In addition to remodeling the city's sewer plants and sewer system, which cost around $100 million, officials are now turning to the awesome (and environmentally unsound?) cleaning power of bleach to help combat the stench.

Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite - better known as bleach - to act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city's treated water before it's dumped into the bay. It will also be used to sanitize drinking water.

This raises the question, are low-flow toilets worth the trouble? Probably. Matier & Ross go on to point out that the troublesome toilets "have helped trim San Francisco's annual water consumption by about 20 million gallons."

[Chronicle]

If you're midway through your lunchtime Lean Cuisine, you might want to wait before reading the following. See, 850 Bryant stank to high heaven on Thursday, and not because of this most recent scandal. The Chronicle reports, "As much as two inches of raw sewage flooded five courtrooms at the San Francisco Hall of Justice today after a jail inmate flushed a bedsheet down a toilet." Carpets will have to be replaced. Gross.

Food fight!

At noon today tomorrow, the Organic Consumers Association (an online grassroots effort dealing with "crucial issues of food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, children's health, corporate accountability, Fair Trade") will protest Alice Waters at Chez Panisse Cafe. Why? Well, according to OCA Director Ronnie Cummins's angry press release, "we are protesting the failure of Alice Waters to oppose growing food on toxic sewage sludge, often deceptively labeled as 'organic compost.'"

The OCA site claims, via "scientific evidence," that city sewage sludge contains "hundreds of dangerous pathogens, toxic heavy metals, flame-retardants, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, pharmaceutical drugs and other hazardous chemicals coming from residential drains, storm water runoff, hospitals, and industrial plants." Also, it contains poop. (Hee!) Anyway, it seems the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is giving away this allegedly toxic sewage sludge compost "to unsuspecting gardeners in the Bay Area including school gardens."

What does Waters have to do with this gastronomic hubbub? The Executive Director of Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Foundation, Francesca Vietor, is also the Vice President of the PUC.Thus, the OCA goes on to claim, "[b]oth Vietor and Waters support growing food on toxic sewage sludge."

by Amy Crocker

Hope you didn't take advantage of the nice weather by surfing, swimming, or engaging in other open water activities. It is estimated that during the past stormy weeks 630,000 gallons of sewage spilled into the bay in 47 different places. This was caused by old, cracked sewer lines, which led the waste from toilets and sinks to mix with runoff water.

Additionally, there was a 170 million gallon overflow into the bay of partially processed sewage (this stuff had at least been filtered and mixed with chlorine) from East Bay Municipal Utility District plants. So in other words, we got way more rain than anyone knew how to deal with and our sewage systems need multibillion-dollar upgrades.