Big win for the Bay!

by Laura Reinhard, Policy Associate

I was at the hearing this week where the Water Board unanimously agreed that 24 tributaries and two major shoreline sections of the Bay are so clogged with trash that they violate the Clean Water Act. This historic step was widely reported in over 20 media stories, including this article in the San Francisco Chronicle or this article in the San Jose Mercury News.

Save The Bay members and concerned citizens helped document this problem by sending in photos of trashy creeks and shorelines around the Bay. Of course, now we have a lot more work to do to make sure that our creeks and Bay get cleaned up. Stay tuned!

For more information on Bay trash, and to find the trash hot spots near you, click here .

Way to GTO!

by Sarah Lyons, Administrative Assistant

A photo of Sylvia McLaughlin, one of Save The Bay’s founding members, hangs in the hallway and watches over me as I work at my desk. The gorgeous Bay landscape and Sylvia’s determined smile are part of what prompted me to recently become head of our Greening The Office (GTO) committee. GTO is a new, inter-departmental group committed to the task of reducing our carbon footprint, and adhering as much as possible to the three R’s--reducing, reusing, and recycling.

It is amazing how much paper, cardboard, electronics, desks, plastics, food waste, disposable bags, metals and more a normal office can go through in just a single day. But Save The Bay is no normal office, and we set about to reduce, reuse, recycle (and compost!) everything we could get our hands on.

A war was already being waged on the most obvious culprit, paper. Some sources say that the consumption of paper in the United States increases by 20% every year. To combat this, we replaced all virgin paper with post-consumer recycled content paper products. And all non-sensitive used paper, including shredded sensitive documents, are placed in clearly-labeled recycling bins. If only one side of a piece of paper is used for a print-job, it’s flipped over and re-used.

A small compost bin is in the kitchen for our discarded food scraps, and my own, personal compost bin has never been happier with the amount of veggie and fruit material I bring home since we have some very healthy staffers. Cotton towels are hanging in the kitchen and bathrooms, and the small amount of paper towels still used is added to the compost. Environmental and animal-friendly soaps and detergents were also thrown into the mix, as well as compostable cups and plates when re-usables are not available.

On the to-do list is the addition of more office plants, a basement cleanout to support bulk orders of supplies (thus cutting down on fuel for transport and packing materials), and aerators for the sinks (supplied by EBMUD). We're always looking to do more, so please feel free to share any ideas you have!

All of these steps are singularly small, but together they make a big difference. It's important to remember—when faced with the daunting task of saving the Bay--that every little bit helps. Not all our efforts to save the Bay need to take on the Bay; some can happen right in our downtown office.

Office greening resources:
www.Stopwaste.org
The Environmentally Green Office at a Glance
www.ireuse.com

Kick the Bag Habit

by Amy Alton, Communications Associate

The San Francisco Weekly published this article a few weeks ago about plastic bags and whether or not banning their usage is the proper way to clean up the environment and end global warming. As the debate between paper versus plastic heats up, it seemed appropriate to share with you Save The Bay's stance on the matter: BYORB—Bring Your Own Reusable Bag.

Californians use an estimated 19 billion plastic bags per year, but only five percent of these are recycled. While some plastic bags sit in landfills for thousands of years, many find their way to our Bay where they often entangle, choke and even kill wildlife. In fact, an astounding fifteen thousand plastic bags were pulled out of the Bay by volunteers in just one day last year.

Paper bags aren't really the answer either. That's why Save The Bay is asking you to join us in supporting a single-use bag fee by signing our petition and helping your community make the switch to re-useable grocery bags, keeping both plastic and paper bags out of the Bay. And while you are shopping, please remember to bring your own bags!

The other kind of Water Boarding

by Laura Reinhard, Policy Associate

While most Bay Area residents don’t lose sleep wondering what is going on at the San Francisco Regional Water Board, people in Vallejo (and elsewhere around the Bay) just might start. The Vallejo Times-Herald recently reported that the city's Rindler Creek is one of many Bay Area creeks being considered for the EPA's "303d" list of trash-impaired waterways. This "303d" designation has sparked backlash from municipalities and, on January 14, brought a showdown at the ol’ Water Board hearing room. I was glad to be there to witness some real leadership for the environment.

On one side: The Clean Water Act and the health of the Bay

On the other: The well-paid consultants who make their money off of studying trash pollution at city expense.

And the bone of contention is the possibility of the Water Board reporting 24 Bay tributaries and two sections of Bay shoreline to the EPA for being so full of trash as to violate the Clean Water Act,. This would require cities to clean up the trash and fix the problem. You will note, quite often the companies making lots of money studying a problem for cities are not the companies making money fixing the problem.

Bay Area cities are understandably concerned about budget woes. But it makes more sense to invest in solutions than superfluous studies of a well-documented problem. Inserts in storm drains that catch trash are one type of project that would keep trash out of our waterways.

In considering reporting these creeks and shorelines to the EPA, several Water Board members spoke out about the crisis of trash and plastic debris in the Bay. Board member Steve Moore, an engineer who has extensive experience with runoff and trash issues, spoke passionately about the need for action. He pointed out the opportunity to put Bay Area residents to work through overdue infrastructure investments that will also clean up the trash and polluted runoff choking our waterways.

The outcome of this showdown looks to be going the Bay’s way. An official vote won’t come until next month or later, but if the January 14 hearing was any indication, the score might be Bay: 1 Trash: 0

Learn more about Save The Bay's Bay Trash Hot Spots

Reporting from the Inauguration: A new day dawns for the Bay

by David Lewis, Executive Director

I’m huddled with my wife and two young daughters below the U.S. Capitol, watching Barack Obama’s historic swearing-in as the 44th President of the United States.

The spectacle is impressive – the huge throngs, the dramatic setting, the pomp and circumstance. The emotion and import is overwhelming –a nation founded upon legal slavery is actually installing an African-American as its national leader.

Most stunning: this dramatic transfer of power and enormous political shift is again accomplished peacefully and orderly, as it has been for more than two centuries.

So what will it mean for San Francisco Bay? We have reason to be optimistic that the federal government will start doing more to prevent pollution of our Bay and accelerate restoration for fish and wildlife. President Obama says a challenging economy actually presents an opportunity for bold steps to strengthen our environment and infrastructure – saving the Bay is a great place to start.

Save The Bay and our sister organizations from estuaries around the nation are already working with the Obama administration on an ambitious plan to increase federal funding for wetland restoration. Restored tidal marsh helps combat global warming by capturing carbon from the atmosphere, protects against coastal flooding, and provides wildlife habitat and recreation for people.

Creating jobs that rebuild the nation’s infrastructure should include upgrading stormwater and sewer systems so they stop trash, bacteria and other toxics from polluting our Bays and oceans.

Nancy Sutley, the new director of the Administration’s Council on Environmental Quality, knows San Francisco Bay and Save The Bay from her years of service on California’s Water Resources Control Board. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senators Boxer and Feinstein, and many of our region’s Members of Congress are Bay champions.

These are all reasons for us to work harder than ever to make progress for the Bay.

Ways to help Save The Bay:
Sign up to volunteer
Join our Bay Saver Email Action Network
Become a Facebook Fan

Gore-tex, Gardening Gloves, and Good Partnerships

by Jocelyn Gretz, Community Programs Manager

My job is to recruit and coordinate details for approximately 5,000 participants for Save The Bay’s programs each year. I love getting people out on the Bay, but every winter I run into the same conundrum—the seasonal rains make it the perfect time for us to plant, but they are also a deterrent for many groups to sign up for projects. The solution: the Gore-tex clad outdoor industry.

After a successful Earth Day project with The North Face last year, I connected with ConservationNEXT—the outreach arm of The Conservation Alliance, a group of outdoor businesses whose collective contributions support conservation organizations and their efforts to protect wild places. They wanted a local environmental service project where their member companies could volunteer, learn about the Alliance and celebrate their service to the earth. Enter Save The Bay.

The first "Backyard Collective" service project was held in partnership with Save The Bay on Friday, January 9 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park in Oakland. A thick morning fog soon lifted to blue skies and temperatures in the 50s, a perfect clear winter day for our project. Over 80 volunteers from seven Bay Area outdoor companies—The North Face, Mountain Hardwear, CamelBak, Clif Bar, REI, Ahnu Footwear, and Wilderness Press—learned about the importance of wetlands as they improved habitat. In one day, this inexhaustible group accomplished the following:

-->Nearly 800 native seedlings planted
-->Over 100 pounds of trash collected
-->Almost 250 hours of service—equal to one person working full time for six weeks!

Our Community-based Restoration Program relies upon the community, and that extends to Bay Area businesses. We need a continual flow of volunteer groups and individuals to help us restore our "backyard" wetlands all around the Bay. In return, we provide a fun, team-building and educational experience at a beautiful shoreline parks.

Whether you'd like to be a winter planter, a weed warrior in the spring and summer, or transplant seedlings in the fall, I encourage you to join us out on the Bay. Contact me to set up a project for your community group or employee team or sign yourself up for one of our public events.

Connecting People to the Bay in their Backyard

by Alicia Moore, School Programs Manager

One of the many strengths of Save The Bay’s Watershed Education Programs is that we connect people to the Bay within their own community. Back in 1961, when Save The Bay was founded, there were only about six miles of public Bay shoreline access. Since then, Save The Bay and many other organizations have worked to increase access and now more than half of the Bay is ringed with public trails, linking a necklace of shoreline parks.

We take advantage of this increased access by working with site partners to get adults and students out on the Bay—to learn about it and to protect, restore, and celebrate it. We use place-based education to connect the human communities around the Bay to the ecological communities in the Bay.

As our lives and surroundings become more urban, we begin to think of nature as a place we have to visit--a place apart from our city and our normal existence. Getting connected with the vast ecosystem of San Francisco Bay recontextualizes all of that. Realizing that you can easily hop a bus, ride your bike, walk or drive to the Bay reframes your life. Nature is no longer somewhere other than where we live; nature is now the uniting entity that gives our unique and beautiful home its very name: the Bay Area.