Crackdown on S.F. Bay Polluters Ordered

The Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that San Francisco Bay is contaminated by toxic chemicals and has ordered a crackdown on polluters.

Despite objections from state regulators, the federal agency plans to list the bay as polluted enough to warrant an investigation into who is polluting the water and how best to clean it up.

“We applaud the EPA for standing up to the industries,” said Greg Karras, senior scientist for San Francisco-based Communities for a Better Environment. “Industries, including petrochemical plants, are putting dioxins in the environment, and it’s getting into the food chain.”

Dioxins are highly toxic byproducts of chlorine-based industrial processes.

The chemicals can travel long distances and accumulate in human bodies through food intake. They are passed from mother to unborn children in the womb and to infants through breast milk.

Dioxins have been linked to cancer and neurological and developmental problems.

People who regularly eat fish from the bay face the greatest risk, the EPA said in a preliminary ruling last week. A final decision could come in December.

The ruling is opposed by the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board and the state Water Resources Control Board. They said the bay is being unfairly targeted, pointing out that dioxins are found in many urban waterways and that the pollutants are also linked to diesel engines and other sources, not just industries.

Karras said his group has identified nearly 30 industrial dioxin sources throughout the bay.