Four Bay Area beaches are among 10 of the dirtiest in CA, as our partners at Heal the Bay report.
And San Francisco accounts for A LOT of coastal California's sewage spills.
Last year, the EPA & CA joined us in suing SFPUC for its 500+ Clean Water Act violations, including bypassing treatment systems and failing to maintain required treatment capacity during storms.
"Toxic 'forever chemicals' are increasingly appearing in U.S. pesticides — contaminating waterways and posing a possible threat to human health, a new study has found.
"Pesticides containing these compounds, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (#PFAS), are used widely nationwide on staple foods, such as #corn, #wheat, #kale, #spinach, #apples and #strawberries, according to the study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives.
"Known for their ability to linger in the human body and the environment, PFAS have been linked to many illnesses, such as thyroid disease, kidney cancer and testicular cancer.
"PFAS-laden pesticides are also used inside homes, for flea treatments on pets and in insect-killing sprays, noted the authors, who represent several environmental organizations.
"The researchers — from the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Working Group and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility — said they drew their conclusions by compiling data on sources of PFAS in pesticide products.
"Cordelia Saunders remembers 2021, the year she and her husband, Nathan, found out that they’d likely been drinking tainted water for more than 30 years. A neighbor’s 20 peach trees had finally matured that summer, and perfect-looking peaches hung from their branches. Cordelia watched the fruit drop to the ground and rot: Her neighbor didn’t dare eat it.
"The Saunderses’ home, in Fairfield, Maine, is in a quiet, secluded spot, 50 minutes from the drama of the rocky coast and an hour and 15 minutes from the best skiing around. It’s also sitting atop a plume of poison.
"For decades, sewage sludge was spread on the corn fields surrounding their house, and on hundreds of other fields across the state. That sludge is suspected to have been tainted with PFAS, a group of man-made compounds that cause a litany of ailments, including kidney and prostate cancers, fertility loss, and developmental disorders. The Saunderses’ property is on one of the most contaminated roads in a state just waking up to the extent of an invisible crisis.
Onur Apul, an environmental engineer at the University of Maine and the head of its initiative to study PFAS solutions, told me that in his opinion, the United States has seen 'nothing as overwhelming, and nothing as universal' as the PFAS crisis. Even the #DDT crisis of the 1960s doesn’t compare, he said: DDT was used only as an insecticide and could be banned by banning that single use. PFAS are used in hundreds of products across industries and consumer sectors. Their nearly 15,000 variations can help make pans nonstick, hiking clothes and plumber’s tape waterproof, and dental floss slippery. They’re in performance fabrics on couches, waterproof mascara, tennis rackets, ski wax. Destroying them demands massive inputs of energy: Their fluorine-carbon bond is the single most stable bond in organic chemistry."