Baykeeper will defend the water quality of San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect its wildlife and local communities from stormwater and wastewater pollution.
There are 86 cities and more than 1,600 industrial facilities around San Francisco Bay that threaten the ecosystem with pollution. Baykeeper has been working for decades to reduce polluted storm water runoff from industrial facilities and Bay Area cities, which is a major source of toxic chemicals, trash, bacteria, oil, pesticides, and other contaminants in the Bay. In the coming year we will conduct targeted advocacy initiatives to prevent runoff pollution from Bay Area cities and industrial facilities.
In the southern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, harmful algal blooms (HABs) are rapidly emerging as a threat to ecosystem and community health in the southern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Toxins in HABs can kill aquatic organisms and threaten human health, both in the water and as airborne aerosols. HABs are fed by excessive nutrient inputs such as from waste water treatment plants and agricultural waste, by inadequate or restricted flow of water, and by increasing water temperatures. The lower San Joaquin River and Delta are plagued by each of these problems, and as a result, the frequency and diversity of HABs has increased dramatically in the southern Delta over the past decade. Baykeeper will document the emergence and spread of HABs in the southern Delta using a variety of remote-sensing technologies that will allow proper spatial resolution of the problem, and show how the HABS develop and spread as temperatures warm during the spring, summer, and fall. We will work closely with our partners at Restore the Delta, as they mobilize and train a cohort of youth interns to conduct water quality samples in areas throughout the southern Delta. We will use the conclusions of this research to advocate for targeted actions to limit the spread and toxicity of HABs in the Delta.
