Environmental Issues and Protection

Much Ado About the Planet

Judge Sides with Tree Huggers Over Highway-Widening Project

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) must reassess how its planned road-expansion project along Highway 101 could truly harm the surrounding redwood trees, a judge ruled.Environmental groups filed a lawsuit last week in San Francisco, hoping to stop Caltrans from widening the two- ... More >>

EPA Orders South Bay Metal Recycler to Stop Polluting San Francisco Bay

Perhaps not the best recyclable​The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Sims Metal Management, a company that claims to be the largest recycler of metal and electronics in the world, to stop polluting San Francisco Bay with toxic chemicals.The EPA announced today that Sims was found d ... More >>

Global Warming Will Submerge Ocean Beach at Little Cost to San Francisco

CosmoPolitician via Flickr​First, the bad news: Ocean Beach will likely sink, thanks to global warming. But the good news is, it won't suck nearly as bad as it will for our neighbors down in Southern California.The reason for this is that our beach is kinda lame, according to a new study. Therefor ... More >>

Teens Sue Federal Government for Failing to Protect Children from Global Warming (Video)

Put this fire out!​Typically, you expect an environmental activist to be dressed in all organic clothing, maybe even birkenstocks. Whatever it is they are wearing, you at least imagine that they are them to be adults, as in over the age of 18. But apparently, the concern over global warming stretc ... More >>

S.F. Feral Cats Policy Good for Cats, Terrible for Birds

Put this fire out!​Typically, you expect an environmental activist to be dressed in all organic clothing, maybe even birkenstocks. Whatever it is they are wearing, you at least imagine that they are them to be adults, as in over the age of 18. But apparently, the concern over global warming stretc ... More >>

Erosion at Ocean Beach could send sewage into the sea

Put this fire out!​Typically, you expect an environmental activist to be dressed in all organic clothing, maybe even birkenstocks. Whatever it is they are wearing, you at least imagine that they are them to be adults, as in over the age of 18. But apparently, the concern over global warming stretc ... More >>

San Francisco Environmentalists Sue EPA Over Clean Air Act

Sparing Polluters​It's Spare the Air Day, and here is why we should refrain from air-polluting behaviors. The San Francisco-based Sierra Club has joined WildEarth Guardians in a legal battle to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to hold more than two dozen states accountable for protec ... More >>

Rec and Parks chief Jared Blumenfeld dumps his boat to work on green issues

Sparing Polluters​It's Spare the Air Day, and here is why we should refrain from air-polluting behaviors. The San Francisco-based Sierra Club has joined WildEarth Guardians in a legal battle to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to hold more than two dozen states accountable for protec ... More >>

New Bill Seeks to Curb Use of Environmental Review to Delay Worthy Projects

Matt SmithThe bike lane injunction is in the rearview mirror, thankfully​Proposed Legislation by Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier aims to diminish the role of state environmental law in delaying local projects posing little threat to Mother Nature.And -- don't you know it -- Mary Miles, the attorney ... More >>

Report Touting Prop. 23 'Simply Nonsense' -- Stanford Prof

Matt SmithHere's what we'll do, y'see: We'll put out crazy-assed think-tank reports, and see if people believe 'em.​The Pacific Research Institute bills itself as a think tank that champions freedom, opportunity, and personal responsibility by advancing free-market policy solutions. But judging fr ... More >>

Sierra Club Sues EPA For Not Enforcing Clean Air Act

Trouble in paradise?​Two environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in federal court in San Francisco, asserting the EPA did not adequately enforce provisions of the Clean Air Act.The lawsuit, filed yesterday by the Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardian ... More >>

New City Program Helps Homeowners Slash PG&E Bill

Look! Green! Green!​But Some Consumers May Be Better Off Looking Elsewhere To Fund Green Home Improvements, Program's Architect AcknowledgesMayor Gavin Newsom this evening will hold an "Internet town hall" to tout a new program helping property owners pay for energy-saving improvements. Dubbed Gre ... More >>

S.F. Green Business Program rewards polluter

Look! Green! Green!​But Some Consumers May Be Better Off Looking Elsewhere To Fund Green Home Improvements, Program's Architect AcknowledgesMayor Gavin Newsom this evening will hold an "Internet town hall" to tout a new program helping property owners pay for energy-saving improvements. Dubbed Gre ... More >>

Is Toxic Waste is Good for the Environment? S.F. Official Explains Logic behind Green Business Program.

​This week's Matt Smith column notes that Sims Metal Management dumps into municipal landfills tens of thousands of tons of waste California Department of Toxic Substances Control scientists say is hazardous. Yet the company somehow received a San Francisco "Green Business Award." The column a ... More >>

Update -- S.F. Pledges $250,000 to Settle Diesel Spill Lawsuit

​San Francisco has agreed to pay $250,000 to settle an EPA lawsuit demanding that the city  prevent a repeat of a 2005 Muni diesel fuel spill.SF Weekly obtained a copy of the consent decree between San Francisco and U.S. officials just after posting an item about an Oct. 27 EPA lawsuit chargi ... More >>

I Wish I Knew How to Quit You: S.F. Chamber of Commerce Won't Leave Global Warming-Denialist U.S. Chamber

​People in fields such as petroleum, investment banking, or running chambers of commerce, know what it means to be blessed. They are embedded within industries that love to put on conventions and trade shows. Workers travel to distant cities, check into the Hyatt, mingle with people who went the s ... More >>

Suit Alleges Environmental Protection Agency Not Doing Enough Environmental Protecting

Smoke 'em if you got 'em...It was the Roman satirist Juvenal who pondered quis custodiet ipsos custodes? -- Who watches the watchmen? If we gave him the answer "The WildEarth Guardians" we don't think it'd satisfy his query (and, honestly, the man's been dead 1,800 years) -- but it wouldn't be wrong ... More >>

Ironically, bike hater Rob Anderson advances cause of cycling in S.F.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em...It was the Roman satirist Juvenal who pondered quis custodiet ipsos custodes? -- Who watches the watchmen? If we gave him the answer "The WildEarth Guardians" we don't think it'd satisfy his query (and, honestly, the man's been dead 1,800 years) -- but it wouldn't be wrong ... More >>

State Senate Committee Moves to Allow Toxic Waste In County Dumps

Thanks, Ma: Toxic waste from old cars is still hunky dory in California The California Senate's Environmental Quality Committee today unanimously approved a bill that would block environmental officials from preventing 700,000 tons of toxic waste from being dumped into county landfills each year. As ... More >>

A Walk in the Park

Thanks, Ma: Toxic waste from old cars is still hunky dory in California The California Senate's Environmental Quality Committee today unanimously approved a bill that would block environmental officials from preventing 700,000 tons of toxic waste from being dumped into county landfills each year. As ... More >>

Climactic Change

Thanks, Ma: Toxic waste from old cars is still hunky dory in California The California Senate's Environmental Quality Committee today unanimously approved a bill that would block environmental officials from preventing 700,000 tons of toxic waste from being dumped into county landfills each year. As ... More >>

Baggage

The city's politicos made the enviros happy by banning plastic bags, but left us with more pollution and cost

Pollution Absolution

A company is dumping questionable materials into the ocean so that you can buy forgiveness in the form of carbon credits

Troublesome Pastimes

One local busybody collects letters from serial killers. Another attacks environmentalists. Guess which one's misguided.

Mean People's Court

On many fronts, the spiteful are doing harmful things that you should know about

Planet Pleasure

Earth Day in S.F.

Unnatural Gas

"Environmentalists" make bad transit worse by insisting Muni buy alt-fuel buses

Fallout: The Past Is Present

The Nuclear Witnesses

Best Use of Trash

The Sanitary Fill Co.

Tabled Salt

Plans to buy Cargill's huge saltworks and restore them to wetlands are thwarted by a sour economy

Letters to the Editor

Ring Master; Salt in the Wound; S.F.: 237, N.Y.: 1

Hold On a Minute!

Ecologists are still trying to spin their phony save the whale campaign

The Unlikely Environmentalists

International environmentalists claim they stopped a Mexican salt plant that endangered the gray whale. Actually, though, the Mexican government canceled the plant for reasons of its own.

The New Economy

The road to Punta Abreojos is paved with hollow intentions

Crying Whale

Environmental groups sent out a worldwide call to save the gray whale from a Mexican salt plant. They got millions of dollars and thousands of new members. But scientists found no threat to the whales.

Rural Cleansing

Large numbers of Northern Californians really, truly believe that the government, the environmentalists, and the U.N. have joined forces in a plot so obvious, yet so subtle, so seemingly benevolent and fundamentally evil, that it can only be called ...

Running on Empty

Detroit automakers have spent millions attempting to unplug California's effort to put electric cars on the road. And so far, Detroit's succeeding.

Chlorine, Benzene, Vinyl Chloride, Trichloroethylene, Beryllium, Nickel, PCBs ...

Even if radioactivity were ignored, Hunters Point Shipyard would be one of the planet's most polluted properties

The Battle for Walpert Ridge

A lawsuit over a proposed Hayward country club promises to be more than just another environmentalists-vs.-developers fight

Current Events

How development pressure and environmental law may force radical change along the seemingly idyllic but deeply troubled Russian River

Love Your Mother

Earth Day events take place Saturday

Shaky Ground

Environmental activists adopt a new strategy -- playing the race card

Cothran

Environmental activists adopt a new strategy -- playing the race card

Cothran

Environmental activists adopt a new strategy -- playing the race card

Fecal Matters

When it comes to sewers, San Francisco just can't get its shit together

Foul Ball

The Giants' new stadium site is almost certainly seeping a stew of toxic chemicals into the bay. Why doesn't the government care?

The Sky's the Limit

How buying and selling pollutants could help clean up the Bay Area's air

Looking A little Green

Taking the Sierra Club's helm, boy wonder Adam Werbach confronts more than his own inexperience

Money for Nothing

If you're good at pushing a shopping cart - really good - and establish a lucrative route, you too can make minimum wage by heisting bottles, cans, and newspapers from the blue recycling bins. And incur the wrath of the cops in the process.