The SF Bay Water Board ("Regional Water Quality Control Board") is preparing to reissue the permit that regulates how much storm water runoff pollution cities and counties are allowed to discharge into the Bay over the next five years (MRP). The Oakland-based nonprofit organization Save The Bay is working to ensure that the permit takes strong action to limit trash. The permit covers 75 percent of the Bay Area's population and thousands of storm drain outfalls in Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties as well as Vallejo and Fairfield-Suisun.

The Water Board's proposed restrictions on trash would for the first time enact measurable, enforceable reductions in trash flowing into San Francisco Bay. These new permit requirements will be a huge benefit to the Bay, especially if coupled with more accountability and oversight and a more specific timeline.

For decades, unlike other urban runoff pollutants, trash has escaped regulation. And yet trash and plastic debris pollution is a serious water quality problem in the Bay and its creeks. A Water Board study found an average of three pieces of trash along every foot of stream and creek leading to the Bay. Plastic never biodegrades. Animals get entangled by trash, suffer and die. Wildlife frequently cannot tell trash apart from their regular diets and eat this "junk" food.

Cities and counties must do their part to protect the Bay from trash and marine debris, and the storm-water permit is an essential tool to control this problem. Southern California is already pursuing an ambitious plan to eliminate all trash from flowing into the Los Angeles River, and the City of San Francisco already captures most of the trash that ends up in the storm drains before it reaches the Bay.

There is an array of storm-water management actions which can reduce trash impacts: trash separators, screens, and booms in storm drains and waterways. The Water Board's draft permit must ensure measurable reductions in trash discharge, specify enforceable measures and timelines for implementation, and require cities and counties to make their trash data accessible to the public.

Please Take Action today and tell the Water Board to support measurable reductions in trash in our creeks and the Bay!

For more information, go to http://www.savesfbay.org/baytrash where you can explore Save The Bay's 10 Trash Hot Spots around the Bay and read this recent article from the SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/11/MNL1S2QBO.DTL&hw=water&sn=011&sc=328

Also see: Trash Dumped in Creeks Creates Huge Ocean Mess. http://www.kron.com/Global/story.asp?s=7128620

To get involved, contact Athena Honore with Save The Bay at 510-452-9261 x118 .