Latest news with #SanFranciscoBay
CBS News
11-06-2025
- Health
- CBS News
"Forever chemicals" found in fish caught in San Francisco Bay, report warns
A warning to anglers who eat their catch from the San Francisco Bay, fish pulled from the waters may contain dangerous levels of so-called "forever chemicals." In a recent report by the San Francisco Estuary Institute, scientists detected 20 types of polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS in fish caught in the bay. Their research and testing of fish began in 2009, and a revised study was published in the American Chemical Society this past March. "PFAS have been known to harm us in a variety of different ways, they've been known to cause cancer," said Miguel Mendez, the lead author of the SFEI study. "It affects us in variety of different organs, including the liver, and over time can cause some severe health effects." Along the docks of San Francisco's Embarcadero, one will find a variety of fisherman who are there for sport or relaxation, but a number of people fish the docks for food. "I think for communities, especially those that are eating every day from the Bay, that is a huge concern and likely leading to a higher load of PFAS and other contaminants, for these populations," said Mendez. Along Pier One, longtime anglers Danny Tran and Nick Hayden were posted up on a sunny afternoon, and both say while they love to fish, they are careful about how much of their catch they consume. "I don't eat too much fish, so I'm okay with it," said Tran. "I probably eat once a month, twice a month and that's about it." "You have to choose what you eat, the smaller (younger) the better, because there's less chemicals in them," said Hayden. "The bigger ones have higher levels of mercury, or whatever they have inside of them." Currently there are no specific state guidelines on the consumption of fish in relation to PFAS. But since 2011 the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessments has offered recommendations on 18 fish species on which types of fish to avoid, which fish are safe to eat, and how many servings are recommended per week, along with gender and age advisories. They updated their recommendations in April of 2023, and have posted signs along local docks. Where anglers catch their fish, can also determine the level of "forever chemicals." SFEI conducted tests in 12 different locations and found higher levels of PFAS in the South Bay. "The South Bay is a hotspot for PFAS, but that doesn't mean that the North Bay is the immune or doesn't have PFAS at all, because fish can swim for location to location," said Mendez. "To those who may have a seafood heavy diet, you should really think about where is my seafood coming from."
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Yahoo
2 rescued from San Francisco cliff after dropping phones
SAN FRANCISCO - Two people had to be rescued after accidentally dropping their phones down a cliffside in San Francisco Saturday afternoon, officials said. The tourists were caught on the cliffside between Deadman's Point and Mile Rock Beach around 3:30 p.m. According to officials, they tried to go down the cliff to get the phones they dropped but became stuck. Crews with the San Francisco Fire Department's Cliff Rescue Unit and Heavy Rescue 1 responded to the scene to pull the pair up to safety. Neither person was injured in the ordeal, officials said. Both were cited by Park Police following the rescue. "SF Fire advises people to stay on trails and follow postage signage," officials said about the rescue.
CBS News
08-06-2025
- CBS News
San Francisco tourists rescued from cliffside after trying to get dropped phone
A pair of San Francisco tourists were rescued Saturday after getting stuck on a cliffside, the San Francisco Fire Department said. Crews were sent to the area between Deadman's and Mile Rock Beach around 3:30 p.m. for a cliffside rescue. The Fire Department said one of them dropped their cellphone, and both of them got stuck on the cliffside trying to get it back. Crews from the Cliff Rescue 14 and Heavy Rescue 1 helped with a rope-rescue operation. The pair were rescued around an hour later. Neither was injured, and they were issued a ticket by the US Park Police. The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office's Henry 1 helicopter was on standby for the rescue, but was not needed.
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Researchers issue urgent warning over increasingly powerful threat to coastal communities: 'When it happens, it's going to be worse'
Coastal communities are experiencing excessive flooding — a form of extreme weather — at alarming new rates, and scientists are sounding the alarm about wildly insufficient infrastructure in low-lying urban areas. Researchers from UC Santa Cruz and the United States Geological Survey teamed up to identify novel flood mitigation strategies, citing an urgent need to shore up coastlines, and their joint findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports. "By 2050, the coastal flooding from extreme storms we currently consider once-in-a-lifetime events could occur every other year due to sea level rise," said in their coverage of the study. "Further, the flooding expected today from a once-in-a-lifetime event could occur daily by the end of the century." Coastal habitats like marshes and coral reefs "have been shown to effectively mitigate flood risk," but decades of development eroded those natural protections. "We've built cities and communities and our world under the assumption that these habitats will continue to protect us," explained lead author Rae Taylor-Burns, "and yet we degrade them." Researchers explored horizontal levees to mitigate flood risk in the San Francisco Bay area and found they were up to 30% more effective than traditional levees at mitigating flood risk. Coastal flooding has always occurred, but rising temperatures have made these extreme events more frequent and more deadly. Climate tech investor and journalist Molly Wood has said that "climate isn't weather, and weather isn't climate," likening human-influenced climate impacts to "steroids for weather." "Whatever was already going to happen, like droughts, floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, heat waves, snowstorms, rain — all that is still going to happen," Wood explained. "But when it happens, it's going to be worse." Echoing the study's researchers, she continued. "Also, extreme versions of what used to be normal weather are going to happen more often." Do you think your city has good air quality? Definitely Somewhat Depends on the time of year Not at all Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. According to Climate Central, the "annual frequency of high tide flooding in the U.S. has more than doubled since 2000 — and is projected to more than triple again by 2050 as sea levels continue to rise." Around 30% of Americans live near a coastline, foregrounding an imminent need to identify accessible flood mitigation strategies and make coastal communities more resilient. Actions like installing solar panels are one way to ensure your home is more resilient in the face of natural disasters that could knock out infrastructure — and EnergySage not only offers quotes from trusted local installers, but can also save consumers up to $10,000 on new solar installations. Getting your power from the sun also helps to avoid contributing to the type of pollution that leads to increasing global temperatures. At the study's conclusion, researchers cited previously published findings that supported nature-based flood defenses for both efficacy and costs. They noted that structural properties like vegetation "could reduce levee investment cost by $320 billion on a global scale," adding that previous research "suggests that restoring marsh habitat in front of seawalls" could be far less costly than raising seawalls. "Horizontal levees could be a less expensive way to reduce the risk of levee failure with climate change, as opposed to increasing the height of the levees themselves," Taylor-Burns remarked. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Irish Times
26-05-2025
- Irish Times
Escape to Alacatraz: swimmers and workers face turning tide
Treacherous currents abound in the San Francisco Bay area. Container ships and whales, sailing boats, sharks and sea swimmers all tackle the tricky tides. The two sea-swimming clubs sit cheek by jowl in Victorian wooden clubhouses on the harbour of the city's aquatic cove. The Dolphin and the Southend share a small urban beach and allegedly a mutual enmity. They have seen a surge in use since the pandemic in spite of the chilly North Pacific waters. Well, they say chilly, but we would just call it grand. As is tradition with wars, there are occasional ceasefires. Every Friday evening peace comes to the small beach with cocktails on the veranda, the two clubs suspending animosities to mingle with clinking glasses. But both shoals have a mutual target in fog-wrapped sight of the horseshoe cove. Alcatraz. READ MORE I first heard of this aquatic Everest from Gerry, a 20-something software engineer from Dublin, standing outside a precipice-perched wine bar in his flip flops and shorts, his dog sleeping at his feet. 'I was training for Alcatraz,' he declared, 'earlier', athletically waving a goblet of Pinot Noir toward the foggy island off in the distance. 'A mile and a half; should take 45 minutes'. It's been in the national news recently but in this city it is omnipresent . The Rock's distinctive shelled-out buildings and defunct water tower loom out of the gloom at dawn and dusk. The city's first lighthouse, once a penal institution that housed Al Capone, was occupied in the 1970s by a Native American tribe, and their graffiti, visible to passing ferries, still claims its indigenous heritage. Ira is stretching athletically on the deck of the Dolphin Club. She has been a member here for 48 years, since she arrived in San Francisco in 1977 at the age of 21, from Iran, one year before the Islamic Revolution. 'I paddled in the Caspian Sea as a child, I wanted to learn to swim so I came to the city on the bay,' she explains, her feet stretched up above her head against the rickety wooden fence. 'Three months later on New Year's Day 1978, I swam from out there, Alcatraz, back to here. I jumped in and swam, the water was 47 degrees – and no wetsuit, in a leotard!' Outside the busy ferry terminal for Alcatraz stand a number of ad-hoc food stalls, selling hot dogs, fruit cups and souvenir trinkets to the thousands of visitors to the Rock. I am in a co-working space just opposite so they are a familiar site to us all, South Americans frying onions, chopping fruit − the original gig economy. A few weeks ago, there was a noisy kerfuffle outside as the vendors suddenly packed up and took off en masse helter skelter down the waterfront Embarcadero, seemingly spooked. Two figures in dark clothes and high-vis jackets came strolling along menacingly. 'Man that sucks, leave them alone,' said a young San Franciscan, Jim, who works with a local sports NGO, shaking his head as he watched. It was a false alarm but a timely reminder of the precarious nature of life here for some. And it was one of the few comments I have heard here on the evolving national situation. Jim is one of the few younger people to speak openly; 'What can we do?' he shrugs. 'It feels hopeless, I mean, are people out there laughing at us?' If anything it is the older citizens who can be heard commenting, swimming against the tide. Maybe they have seen it all. In Washington Square an elderly man in a T-shirt and military veterans hat, stands at a packed shopping trolley, proselytising the picnickers. 'Tell your neighbours, shout it out, watch the stocks, there's a showdown coming with China, in Chinatown, San Francisco.' In Cafe Trieste, where Francis Ford Copolla is said to have written The Godfather screenplay, among the vintage coffee drinkers, a man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt says he is 'just checking the stocks − up 500, S&P up too. He must have done a deal with Zelenskiy'. He shakes his head and returns to his cappuccino. A barman talks at night in the quiet. 'The shoe is going to drop soon man, the next few weeks, you can ignore the news all you want but when the shelves start emptying, that's when the shoe drops.' I bump into Iranian Ira again down at the swimming club, looking out at Alcatraz. She has swum from it 12 times in her 48 years in the city on the bay, a stretch of water with some of the most treacherous currents, not to mention the odd whale or shark. What about the latest late night-announced grand plan from Washington, or rather Florida: to reopen the prison on The Rock. 'Oh Trump, him?' she replies. 'It'll never happen, too expensive, no water over there. But I'll tell you, it keeps people's minds busy, that it does'. The sun is shining, the swimmers are out, the sailboats skim the waves past The Rock and container ships glide by, only half as full as they were a few weeks ago.
