Author: Guest Blogger

My name is Ian McKernan and I am a 7th grader at Shorecliffs Middle School in Orange County. Although I live in Southern California, I have visited the Bay Area many times and am always impressed with how clean and good the Bay looks. It’s always fun for me to see how many people enjoy it too. Personally, I like to sail around Dana Point Harbor, so I always look for people sailing on the water. After hearing about Sylvia McLaughlin, Kay Kerr, and Esther Gulick’s fight to save San Francisco Bay in the 1960s, it inspired me to build …

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A deluge of trash is flowing through Oakland’s storm drains and depositing so much litter in San Francisco Bay that regulators are threatening to levy fines if the city doesn’t do something to tidy up. Despite spending millions of dollars over the years on garbage cleanup, Oakland has the Bay Area’s worst record for limiting the rubbish that pollutes creeks, lakes and the bay, according to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. The flow of waste violates mandates set by the board to reduce storm drain litter this year by 70 percent compared with 2009, a goal …

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WASHINGTON — A Trump administration budget proposal released Tuesday that even some Republicans dismissed as too draconian would slash hundreds of billions of dollars from programs that provide health coverage to low-income people in California and the rest of the country. The $4.1 trillion budget proposal, called “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” takes an ax to domestic programs nearly across the board, from health care to education, science to environmental protection, food stamps to farm programs. The budget would hit Trump voters in poorer red states especially hard by severely reducing the safety net for …

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I wonder at first why David Lewis has chosen to meet at Point Isabel, a somewhat nondescript stretch of filled Bay shoreline at the south edge of Richmond. “What we’re standing on shouldn’t be here,” Lewis admits. “But look around!” He gestures toward the hills. “Up there is where Kay Kerr lived.” Kerr, one of the three founders of Save The Bay, the organization Lewis now heads, looked down on this shore when it was a row of active landfills pushing into the Bay—and knew she must take a stand. At home in Kensington, Lewis enjoys a similar but now …

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The San Francisco Bay is emerging as a huge target for the Trump Administration as it plans to slash spending at the Environmental Protection Agency: A preliminary budget this week shows President Donald Trump plans to eliminate a $4.8 million federal program to protect the bay. The document, obtained by the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, outlines major cuts to estuaries around the country, as the administration aims to carve 3,000 jobs and $2 billion, or 25 percent of the current budget, from the EPA’s 2018 budget. Environmentalists across the country have been bracing for Trump’s long-promised budget ax, …

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As a documentary filmmaker, conservationist, and proud Bay Area resident, experience has taught me that when we focus on hope and solutions, our society is capable of great things. You and the Save The Bay community are proof of that. Measure AA passed earlier this year because more than 70 percent of us here in the Bay Area stood up to restore our wetlands, and to make it better and healthier for everyone. And just weeks ago, Californians stood together to ban the plastic bag in our state once and for all by passing Prop. 67. Save The Bay and …

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OAKLAND — Part of what people love about the San Francisco Bay is its beauty. For many, it’s what drew them to the area and keeps them from leaving. But it’s more than the Golden Gate Bridge, city skylines and other manmade creations. It’s also a region literally alive with plants, animals and natural resources, as well as the largest and most ecologically important estuary on the West Coast. On Saturday (Oct. 1), PG&E joins the environmental nonprofit Save the Bay organization for the first Bay Day. The day is an opportunity for everyone to celebrate the San Francisco Bay …

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San Pablo Bay borders just a few square miles of Sonoma County, but its significance to locals is far greater than the area it covers. It is part of our identity — after all, don’t we in Sonoma County refer to ourselves as the North Bay? We rely on the Bay for recreation and the health of our economy. Its tidal wetlands sequester carbon, provide habitat for endangered and threatened species, filter bay waters, and protect us from sea level rise. The Bay is an extension of our open space — and as such, we at Sonoma Land Trust aim …

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Corinne C. DeBra of Palo Alto has walked around the Bay twice, taking pictures along the way. Her exhibit “Walking the Bay” opens at Keeble & Shuchat Photography in Palo Alto opens Sept. 15 to Oct. 12. Read more on her blog. “What possessed you to take a 1,000-mile walk around San Francisco Bay?” someone once asked me. It’s difficult to explain why I took this long walk, and am now on a more leisurely second circumnavigation around the Bay, to people who haven’t enjoyed a good hike or a beautiful sunset along the Bay Shore. To those who watch the …

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Back in September, I wrote about the 370-page attack on San Francisco Bay by Cargill and its Arizona-based luxury housing developer DMB Associates. These powerful companies are currently maneuvering to avoid key federal environmental rules like the Clean Water Act from applying in any way to salt ponds in San Francisco Bay. That post was focused on Cargill’s incredible argument that the Bay water that evaporates in these ponds to make salt (see photo) is not “water” at all. Instead, their lawyers call it “brine” or use other euphemisms. A lawyer for the developer told a reporter that my post was “completely wrong” but then confirmed the opposite, stating …

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