Save The Bay Blog

Our allies at Heal The Bay were instrumental in moving the Los Angeles council resolution forward.

You’ve probably heard by now – the City of Los Angeles voted on Tuesday afternoon to become the largest city in the U.S. to ban plastic carryout bags.  For those who have been following the progress of bag bans in the Bay Area, this vote underlines the ever-increasing momentum for local ordinances to protect waterways and keep communities free of trash and litter.

When it goes in to effect, L.A.’s ban will mean that an incredible ¼ of California’s population will be covered by some form of a plastic bag ban.  That’s huge progress

in just the handful of years since San Francisco became the first city in the state to enact such a ban in 2007.  Even more impressive is the number of bags that this latest ban will take off the streets.  According to Los Angeles sanitation officials, an estimated 2 billion (that’s billion with a “B”) plastic bags will no longer be handed out following implementation between January and July of 2014.

The momentum is indeed on the side of the environment and our communities. Thanks, Los Angeles.

Want to know whether your city has enacted a ban?  Check out our up-to-date list of Bay Area bag bans, and sign up to learn more about bags, the Bay, and what you can do.

Do you remember the first time you saw the Bay?

Did your breath catch in your throat? Did your eyes widen at the sheer size of the Bay, the vast sparkling blueness that seemed to stretch on forever? Did you hear seals barking or sails flapping in a strong wind? The Bay brings us unforgettable moments…chilly walks along the shore…vibrant sunsets…that sense of home you feel when the thick fog breaks to reveal the Golden Gate Bridge.  These moments are the reason we’re so lucky to live in the Bay Area. The Bay is important to all of us—it makes our home unique. We can’t afford to take it for granted.

Today, we’re launching our first ever Bay-A-Thon to rally support for the spectacular San Francisco Bay.

For the next two weeks, every dollar we raise for the Bay-A-Thon will be matched dollar-for-dollar by a generous donor. Donating now is an incredibly powerful way to support local restoration and education programs right here in our shared backyard.

The Bay-A-Thon is about celebrating and protecting the unique treasures of the Bay. We’re not just saving the Bay for us, but for future generations to enjoy the magnificent experiences and recreational opportunities we enjoy with our family and friends. This is why we need your support today to keep our Bay healthy and people and wildlife.

Every gift that Save The Bay receives by July 4^th will be matched dollar-for-dollar, up to $150,000. Can we count on you to offer your support for the first ever Bay-A-Thon and help us protect our Bay?

Your support makes a difference. Any amount you donate will be doubled to aid our efforts to restore crucial habitat for the seals, porpoises, and birds that call the Bay home and help protect the magnificent Bay recreational opportunities you enjoy with your family and friends. July 4th will be here sooner than you know, so make your Bay-A-Thon gift today.

Sevengill Shark. Photo courtesy of Aquarium of the Bay

There are unseen creatures living under the surface and learning about a few of them can give the Bay new depth. The Great White Shark gets a lot of attention in the movies, but what about its toothy cousins? Introducing the Sevengill shark of San Francisco Bay!

Can I see one? Will it eat me?

The sharks like to hang out in deep water, up to 450 feet down. In the SF Bay they’re often found 60 feet below the surface, far from the deck of a ferry and still farther from the Golden Gate Bridge pedestrian path.  Your best chance to see one up close is to visit a local aquarium housing such fine beasts.  The sharks eat fish, seals, rays and other sharks. Your less buoyant, surface dwelling body is most likely not on their grocery list.

Where does the Sevengill shark breed? How long does it live? Are its numbers increasing or declining?

Sevengill sharks give live birth versus laying eggs. Between 80 and  100 young are born per pregnancy! Gestation can last up to two years. San Francisco Bay is thought to be a primary pupping ground. Aquarium of the Bay and UC Davis’ Biotelemetry Lab are currently doing research to better understand the behavior and health of these SF Bay natives.  The shark’s role in the bustling subsurface city is bound to be important even if we don’t yet know the full job description.

The Bay is right there, even in a traffic jam or windowless office; you know it’s an intersection or a glance away. These sharks, their prey and the constantly changing web of life, are just below the surface.  There is a brackish city teeming with life, relationships, and hardship in our backyard and we’re doing our best to help it thrive.

Check out this week’s Weekly Roundup for breaking news affecting San Francisco Bay.

San Francisco Chronicle 6/9/13
Restoring the shore on World Oceans Day
To the person who tossed the Burger King action hero cup somewhere in Oakland – yes, you – here’s what happened to it: After tumbling into a drain, it floated down the culvert beneath city streets, surfaced in the East Creek Slough and landed on a shore near the airport.
There your cup met a Lay’s barbecue potato chip bag, a hot sauce wrapper, a Quickly Market cup, assorted plastic forks and spoons, and plenty of other garbage caught in patches of western goldenrod and sticky monkey flower along the slough’s south bank. Those native plants capture much of the junk before it can drift farther into San Francisco Bay, and are planted there not to ease your conscience, should it exist, but to protect the Pacific Ocean.
Read more>>

SF Examiner 6/11/13
Bayfront Trail gaps not going anywhere
The Burlingame Bayfront Shoreline Trail, part of the San Francisco Bay Trail system, is 5.5 miles of scenic hiking and biking trail that runs alongside the Bay. Its views are beautiful, but two noticeable gaps divide the trail. Walkers and bikers must retire to the street or forge ahead through nonpaths that may be littered with detritus such as old mattresses.
Read more>>

ONEARTH 5/29/13
Could California’s Salmon Make a Comeback?
Jon Rosenfield and I bushwhack through the scrubby willows that line the American River east of Sacramento. The air is crisp this October morning, and the timing of our visit should be just right to watch California’s Chinook salmon as they return to where their lives began and spawn the next generation. Rosenfield, a biologist, works for a conservation group called the Bay Institute, and he wants me to witness an annual ritual that future generations might not have the opportunity to see.
Read more>>

Mercury News 6/12/13
Bay Trail to add scenic segment along Carquinez Strait bluffs
A washed-out and washed-up county road is about to be remade into a new, $5.5 million regional shoreline trail along the scenic Carquinez Strait, linking Central and West Contra Costa County.
On or before July 5, East Bay Regional Park District contractors will be begin rebuilding and converting 1.7 miles of Carquinez Scenic Drive into a hiking and riding trail between Martinez and the town of Port Costa.
The trail segment — expected to open in fall 2014 — will improve access to an often-overlooked area of hills, shoreline, natural parks and preserve south of the strait between San Francisco Bay and the Delta.
Read more>>

The Sacramento Bee 6/10/13
Delta could get saltier if tunnels are built
The two giant water diversion tunnels Gov. Jerry Brown proposes building in the Delta would be large enough to meet annual water needs for a city such as Newport Beach in a single day’s gulp from the Sacramento River.
That gulp, however, would also prevent a lot of fresh water from flowing through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This would likely make water saltier for farms near Isleton and cities such as Antioch, which draws some of its drinking water from the Delta.
Read more>>

The next rain storm would carry this trash from the
Guadalupe River bed straight to the Bay and beyond.

We’ve seen on our creek cleanups that single-use plastic bags and other trash ends up in our waterways and eventually flow out to the Bay.  We’ve even learned that they float all the way out into the open ocean and collect to form the Pacific Garbage Patch.  But what’s going on under the ocean’s surface?

A study from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) shows that surprisingly large amounts of discarded trash not only clutter our waterways and beaches, but accumulate in the deep sea as well.  Ocean researchers looked up to 300 miles offshore and 13,000 feet deep and said “we’ve seen trash everywhere we looked.”   Plastic shopping bags and aluminum beverage cans were the most common items found in the study.

Frustratingly, the majority of the debris was glass, metal, paper, or plastic and could have been recycled.  But once trash reaches the deep sea, degradation is slow due to lack of oxygen and sunlight, and cleanup is expensive and impractical.  The only solution is to stop trash before it enters our waterways.

Save The Bay continues to advocate for local plastic bag and Styrofoam bans throughout the Bay Area and to organize volunteers to clean up creeks that drain into the Bay.  Close to 75% of Bay Area residents live in cities or counties that have passed a single-use bag ban and almost 30% of all Bay Area jurisdictions have adopted a Styrofoam ban.  Though this is a huge accomplishment, some of our Bay Area neighbors are lagging behind – Contra Costa County, the cities of Milpitas and Santa Clara, and the North Bay wine country have yet to take action to prevent plastic bag or Styrofoam pollution from entering our waterways, our Bay, and our ocean.

Take action to stop trash where it starts – sign our petition to encourage Bay Area cities to crack down on Bay trash.