Saving the San Francisco Bay through Community Involvement
Assemblyman, 13th District
In 2001, San Franciscans saw Crissy Field go from a dilapidated former military site to a robust and inviting natural attraction. When the local community, volunteers, and the city, state, and national governments came together to clean up this section of our City we witnessed an environmental success story.
With this in mind, we know we can do more for San Francisco’s often neglected southeast shore which has simply been ignored for too long. The southeast waterfront area stretching from Potrero Hill through the Bayview-Hunters Point and Candlestick Point, is among the most polluted coastal areas in the San Francisco Bay Region. In fact, Yosemite Slough, which is just north of Candlestick Point was named one of the Top 10 Bay Trash Hot Spots by the non-profit organization Save The Bay, this year.
The Yosemite Slough and southeast waterfront of San Francisco contain so much trash that recent clean-up efforts have removed more than 3,500 pounds of debris in the last year. While a minor amount of this debris is from marine activities, the majority is from litter dropped on our streets, parking lots, sidewalks, and roadsides. Carried away by storm water runoff, neighborhood litter makes its way into the Slough, the Bay and the Pacific Ocean. This marine debris can include everything from cigarette butts and plastic bottles, to large items like appliances, and tires that do not belong in San Francisco Bay.
This problem is not limited to San Francisco. Marine debris is a major global issue that is seriously threatening our oceans. Modern litter, largely consisting of food “to go” containers is commonly made of plastics that don’t decompose naturally. The amount of non-biodegradable litter is increasing with indoor smoking bans, the replacement of high recycle value aluminum cans with low value plastic bottles, and the popularity of fast food.
Marine debris is not only unsightly but can devastate wildlife and the quality of our water. Automotive chemicals that are washed from roads by rain water naturally cling to plastics, which breakdown over time into smaller pieces that can then be ingested by wildlife. Chemicals that would have been dispersed in water are concentrated into a toxic plastic pill that can not only block digestive tracts of fish, marine mammals, and birds, but also poison the food chain.
What can we as citizens do about it? Concerned members of the Yosemite Slough watershed area have made a difference by volunteering to pick up trash and refurbish the ecosystem by planting native plants. To volunteer, please contact: Save The Bay at www.savesfbay.org or call 510-452-9261.
The City and the state must also do their part to protect the Slough and other Bay Area streams from further contamination by stopping litter from flowing into our fragile water resources. I was pleased to author and pass a new state law, Assembly Bill 1056, that will provide our state’s Ocean Protection Council with the scientific capacity to tackle tough issues like marine debris using $90 million allocated by Proposition 84 passed by the voters in 2006.
Clearly, more attention to the clean up needs of San Francisco and the Bay is beneficial. Please support the efforts of organizations like the Audubon Society, the Coastal Conservancy, and California State Parks Foundation who are working to secure funding for a wetlands restoration around Yosemite Slough. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Control Board, with pressure from Save The Bay, is currently considering requiring local governments to remove litter from storm water. I encourage them to move forward with the proposed limits on trash-laden Bay Area runoff.
We can and must do more to clean up San Francisco’s Southeast waterfront and in the process protect the Bay from a growing amount of toxic, non-biodegradable trash that is contaminating our region’s water, wildlife, and ultimately ourselves.
It is my pleasure to serve as your representative in the California Assembly. If you would like more information about my work in creating a safer and cleaner environment, and further ways you can get involved in coastal clean up efforts along the Bay, please feel free to contact my office here in San Francisco: 415-557-3013 or via the web: www.assembly.ca.gov/Leno.
For those joining in gay marriages today, the road from outlaw status to respectability was paved in the Legislature over three decades.
From decriminalizing sex between same-sex couples, to outlawing job discrimination against homosexuals, to adding gay members to the legislative roster, the government has been taking steps, measure-by-measure, that have led to gay couples joining hands in marriage ceremonies across the state.
