SF Water Board puts trash in its place

By Amy Ricard, Communications and Policy Associate

Fish and wildlife may finally get some relief from pervasive trash pollution.

Yesterday, the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board voted to approve historic and long-overdue requirements for cities to make significant, measurable reductions in trash flowing to the Bay.

This is great news for the Bay! Even the San Francisco Chronicle thinks so.

Under the new municipal regional permit, cities and other permittees must reduce trash getting into the Bay by 40 percent in the next four years, and achieve zero trash discharge from stormwater within 12 years.

Intense public interest and involvement and years of sustained advocacy have finally produced a permit approach that can begin to reduce Bay trash. In fact, 20 state and federal legislators, nearly 40 community organizations and environmental groups and thousands of Save The Bay supporters have joined us in advocating that trash must be reduced like mercury and other urban runoff pollutants.

What to do now? Save The Bay is urging the Water Board to work diligently to ensure full compliance with these groundbreaking regulations; and through the Clean Bay Project, we are working with cities to help them achieve these important trash reductions.