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(https://missionlocal.org/advertise/) Advertise (https://missionlocal.org/business-memberships/) Business membership (/support-our-publication) Donate (https://missionlocal.org/subscribe-to-the-mission-local-newsletter/) Newsletter Sign In Open Search Search for: (Search \u2026) () Search (https://missionlocal.org/support-our-publication/) Donate Menu Sign In Posted in (https://missionlocal.org/category/column/) Column Weaponized turds: San Francisco\u2019s strange and terrible victory over the EPA \u2018If you have an argument against the EPA that\u2019s so bad you can\u2019t get Justice Alito on your side, that\u2019s saying something.\u2019 (A person in a blue shirt and striped tie stands outdoors in front of a tree, looking at the camera.) by (https://missionlocal.org/author/joee/) Joe Eskenazi March 10, 2025, 5:30 am March 11, 2025, 11:36 am Share this: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/?share=x&nb=1) (Click to share on X) Click to share on X (Opens in new window) (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/?share=facebook&nb=1) (Click to share on Facebook) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/?share=reddit&nb=1) (Click to share on Reddit) Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/?share=jetpack-whatsapp&nb=1) (Click to share on WhatsApp) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) (mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Weaponized%20turds%3A%20San%20Francisco%E2%80%99s%20strange%20and%20terrible%20victory%20over%20the%20EPA&body=https%3A%2F%2Fmissionlocal.org%2F2025%2F03%2Fweaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa%2F&share=email&nb=1) (Click to email a link to a friend) Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#print) (Click to print) Click to print (Opens in new window) (Turd surfing) CowaDUNGa! Illustration by Ronna Raz (https://missionlocal.org/support-our-publication/) (A chef presents a dish labeled \"Mission Local,\" with a man and woman watching. Text includes references to news topics like \"investigation\" and \"breaking news.\" Chef says, \"Enjoy.) Are you a regular Joe Eskenazi reader? Mission Local is home to San Francisco\u2019s premier political reporter , serving up analysis you can\u2019t get elsewhere. If you agree, help feed the city\u2019s news appetite \u2014 donate below . (https://missionlocal.org/support-our-publication/) Donate today! Politicians are wont to say that there are no Democratic potholes or Republican potholes. Alright, fair enough: But what about turds? What about turds \u2026 floating offshore? Are there Republican floating turds or Democratic floating turds? You\u2019re not going to believe this, but one could argue that,yes, there are. San Francisco, in fact, literally made a federal case out of this. And, lo and behold, we won! Last week, San Francisco (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-753_f2bh.pdf) bested the Environmental Protection Agency in a case that worked its way all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. The city prevailed via a (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-753_f2bh.pdf) counterintuitive 5-4 grouping; Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberals,\u00a0meaning that, for whatever reason, all the male justices favored San Francisco and all the female ones did not. (Mission Local logo, with blue and orange lines on the shape of the Mission District) Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter below. (1) (635166) (05b141c840) (Email address) () Sign up As you\u2019d imagine regarding a regulatory case, there were a lot of ins, lot of outs, lot of what-have-yous. But, in the end, it all came down to floating turds. As in: The (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/10/20/) great heap of turds that San Francisco\u2019s antiquated combined sewer system ejects offshore when overwhelmed with stormwater. That\u2019s a sticky situation, but it gets worse: The city claims these turds were politically weaponized,\u00a0because there really is a distinction between Republican and Democratic turds. You may recall the 2019 incident in which President Donald Trump rage-tweeted about homeless people\u2019s excrement and drug paraphernalia washing into the bay,\u00a0and a lapdog at the EPA followed through by (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/02/san-francisco-epa-water-pollution-trump) citing San Francisco for pollution. This, it seems, was the germ of the strange and terrible lawsuit in which San Francisco vanquished the EPA,\u00a0with a who\u2019s who of polluters lined up behind the city, and a who\u2019s who of environmental groups lined up against it. \u201cI would bet that most San Franciscans don\u2019t enjoy having untreated shit in their water,\u201d says Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who authored (https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/r0512-24.pdf) a resolution last year urging the city to avoid handing the Supreme Court a cudgel to further batter the Clean Water Act. Her resolution passed\u00a0but went unheeded. (https://www.usfca.edu/request/urban-public-affairs?sys:interaction:code=1817ad76-6224-4531-ad96-9e4ed6864923&utm_campaign=upa-mpa&utm_source=mission-local&utm_medium=display&utm_content=ad) (4/7) (4/7) So, here we are: \u201cIt makes me ashamed,\u201d Melgar continued. \u201cWe\u2019re sooooooooo progressive.\u201d But there was nothing progressive about the fines the city was racking up: San Francisco\u2019s Supreme Court win negates proposed EPA (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/04/supreme-court-san-francisco-epa-sewage-water-pollution/) penalties in the hundreds of millions of dollars and mandatory sewer system upgrades that would cost billions and billions. These are untenable directives and, for whatever reason, the city and President Joe Biden\u2019s EPA could not come to a mutual agreement to avoid involving the Trump Supreme Court. Heck, that\u2019s unfortunate: Dave Owen, a professor specializing in environmental and water law at University of California Law, San Francisco, (https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/environmental_law/2024/09/epa-and-san-franciscos-looming-mistake.html) likened entrusting the corrupted and activist high court with an environmental matter to \u201cbringing in the mafia to resolve a neighborhood dispute.\u201d It is, truly, a shame that the city and EPA could not stave off this eventuality. And now the Supreme Court has made us an offer we can\u2019t refuse. Perhaps fittingly, considering the subject matter, nobody\u2019s hands are clean. (Trainspotting toilets) As a result of the city\u2019s victory, several paragraphs will be stricken from the treatise-sized permits governing its wastewater plants. At issue were broad, general clauses that, prior to Trump\u2019s Twitter saber-rattling, had largely gone unenforced. Among them: Neither the treatment nor the discharge of pollutants shall create pollution, contamination, or nuisance as defined by California Water Code Section 13050. The broad clauses, like this, that San Francisco\u2019s successful suit has invalidated are often included in the permits overseeing mining operations or chemical plants. While, God willing, we know most of what\u2019s coming out of the city\u2019s sewer pipes, that\u2019s not the case with regards to washing acres of earth into rivers in a mountaintop mining operation or discharging byproducts from an industrial plant. Broad clauses, environmental attorneys say, are a \u201cbackstop\u201d against unforeseen water pollution. \u201cAnd now that tool has been taken away,\u201d says Nick Torrey, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in North Carolina. \u201cThis is going to make it much more difficult to enforce water-quality standards.\u201d Prior to this ruling, if an unanticipated environmental hazard was created by a mine or chemical plant, the EPA could quickly swoop in and mandate them to stop. But now that\u2019s in doubt: If the specific substance isn\u2019t noted in the permit, that power is no longer there. So, what\u2019s going to happen? The EPA will have to make the permitting process more onerous on the front end, analyze every possible negative outcome, and get that into the permit. This would be a huge time-suck and time, of course, is money. Or, the EPA could simply wash its hands of this kind of strenuous regulation and, as a result, do a crappier job of protecting the environment. Considering Trump\u2019s push to gut the agency, this is hardly implausible. \u201cLook at the list of who filed the amicus briefs for the city,\u201d says Torrey. Among them are the National Mining Association, National Association of Home Builders, and public wastewater and stormwater agencies. \u201cIt\u2019s a laundry list of all the polluting industry trade groups. They all benefit from this.\u201d (Person with a flashlight crawls through a dark, dirty tunnel.) San Francisco is on a roll. Last year we handed (https://missionlocal.org/2024/06/sfs-dishonest-legal-brief-lets-supreme-court-criminalize-homelessness/) Justice Neil Gorsuch the scalpel he needed to lacerate legal rulings preventing the rousting and criminal prosecution of homeless people who have nowhere else to go. And, now, we\u2019ve done the same, even more proactively, on behalf of environmental villains. City Attorney David Chiu has been the most aggressive elected official in San Francisco regarding Trump\u2019s authoritarian and anti-democratic moves. But he\u2019s also lobbed these two fat pitches to Trump\u2019s Supreme Court. But you know what? It could be worse. Owen, the San Francisco law professor and water expert, worried last year that the Supreme Court could use the San Francisco case to eviscerate the Clean Water Act and mortally wound the EPA. While both have been weakened, neither has been undone. In this decision, Owen did not see the breadcrumbs,\u00a0\u201cor sometimes whole loaves,\u201d this court has sprinkled throughout its prior rulings to clue in polluting Hansels and Gretels on the path to further undoing any and all environmental regulations. It also warrants mentioning that, by an 8-1 ruling with only Gorsuch dissenting, the Supreme Court denied one of San Francisco\u2019s major arguments. In a nutshell, San Francisco called for quantifiable limitations on its effluent;\u00a0stuff you can measure. This, environmentalists argued, would do away with \u201cnarrative\u201d criteria: stuff you can\u2019t necessarily measure and may just see. That could be as simple as no visible turds or toilet paper, please. The city has stated, explicitly, that it did not wish to do away with narrative criteria. But the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling found that the city\u2019s argument would\u2019ve done just that: \u201cSan Francisco\u2019s interpretation would \u2026 invalidate widely accepted narrative permit provisions \u2026\u201d reads Justice Samuel Alito\u2019s (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-753_f2bh.pdf) decision . \u201cIt is telling that the City\u2019s interpretation would lead to \u2026 drastic consequences that the City is unwilling to embrace.\u201d So, the outcome of this particular case was limited. But not because the city was measured but, rather, because San Francisco\u2019s argumentwas too extreme for the Trump Supreme Court. \u201cIf you have an argument against the EPA that\u2019s so bad you can\u2019t get Justice Alito on your side, that is saying something,\u201d sums up Owen. \u201cI think it\u2019s pretty clear the Supreme Court understood the city was asking to get rid of narrative standards and rejected that. If the city wants to say they didn\u2019t want to? That\u2019s pretty rich.\u201d In the end, the consequences of this fight will depend on where you stand; the ramifications of a wealthy city\u2019s actions will be felt by the less fortunate, elsewhere. Water, after all, flows downstream. And shit rolls downhill. (https://missionlocal.org/category/featured/) Latest news (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/tow-truck-burn-conspiracy-indicted-lamborghini/) (S.F. tow truck operator indicted for \u2018conspiracy\u2019 to burn competitors\u2019 trucks) (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/tow-truck-burn-conspiracy-indicted-lamborghini/) S.F. tow truck operator indicted for \u2018conspiracy\u2019 to burn competitors\u2019 trucks (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/supervisor-danny-sauter-wants-more-s-f-trash-cans-city-says-no-for-now/) (Supervisor Danny Sauter wants more S.F. trash cans. City says no need.) 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It's never too late to join the 2,500+ readers who have donated to help strengthen our reporting capacity. (635173) (/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/) (1) (USD) ({\"year\":592947,\"month\":592946,\"once\":592945}) () (Continue) () One-time Monthly Annually (once) One-time Donation amount $ (25) (month) Monthly Donation amount\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tper month $ (15) (year) Annually Donation amount\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tper year $ (180) About 75% of our revenue comes from readers like you Donate today! (1) Follow Us (https://twitter.com/MLNow) Twitter (https://www.instagram.com/missionlocal/) Instagram (https://www.youtube.com/@MissionLocal) YouTube (https://www.linkedin.com/company/mission-local-inc-/) LinkedIn (https://mastodon.social/@MLNow@sfba.social) Mastodon (https://missionlocal.org/author/joee/) (A person in a blue shirt and striped tie stands outdoors in front of a tree, looking at the camera.) (https://missionlocal.org/author/joee/) Joe Eskenazi (mailto:getbackjoejoe@gmail.com) getbackjoejoe@gmail.com (https://x.com/EskSF) x Managing Editor/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left. \u201cYour humble narrator\u201d was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere. He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers. The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year. (https://missionlocal.org/author/joee/) More by Joe Eskenazi Join the Conversation 20 Comments () Greeny says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281110) (March 10, 2025, 9:26 am at 9:26 am) March 10, 2025, 9:26 am at 9:26 am For the longest time (as in decades) old timer Ocean Beach surfers know not to surf OB 24 hours after a rain storm. You\u2019ll get sick. Like the Seine. +4 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () SFAtty says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281157) (March 10, 2025, 11:31 am at 11:31 am) March 10, 2025, 11:31 am at 11:31 am I urge people to read the Supreme Court decision itself, because it is far less remarkable or extreme than is suggested here. As the opinion states: \u201c[T]his case involves provisions that do not spell out what a permittee [SF] must do or refrain fromdoing; rather, they make a permittee responsible for the quality of the water in the body of water into which the permittee discharges pollutants. When a permit contains such requirements, a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards.\u201d So SF did everything the permit required it to do, and nothing in the opinion or briefing even suggests that SF has been negligent in operating its treatment systems. But despite that, in rare circumstances during extremely heavy rains, the sewers and sewer treatment plants are overwhelmed and untreated water is discharged. Not good, but once again, there is no suggestion that this is due to anything SF has done negligently. But Trump I decided in 2019 that SF should be fined hundreds of millions of dollars and must spend billions of dollars because \u2013 no matter what \u2013 no pollutant shall ever end up being discharged. The Clean Water Act could have said that is the standard, but it doesn\u2019t. The EPA made up that standard. Imagine if a business followed every OSHA rule to the letter but due to some freak occurrence \u2014 say, a rare storm blew open a window and caused an employee to slip and fall \u2014 so OSHA shut the business down because \u201ceven if you follow all the rules, someone still was injured.\u201d In a perfect world, nothing bad would ever happen. But that is not what the Clean Water Act (or pretty much any other law) requires. SF can still upgrade its plants to make any discharge less likely, and I hope it does. But the law does not require it to spend billions to meet an impossible standard that was made up. +5 -2 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () mealy says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281253) (March 10, 2025, 3:32 pm at 3:32 pm) March 10, 2025, 3:32 pm at 3:32 pm \u201cWhen a permit contains such requirements\u201d is the point being made that you may be glossing over. They need to quantify limits on every last thing for every last permit now, or it\u2019s \u2018legal\u2019 by default. That will add both eyeball hours and delays in permit remittance. As it says it could be worse, they could have gutted all enforcement power of EPA as some expected. The design of SF combined sewer and storm capacity is limited which renders the system deficient during storms. The obvious solution is to add capacity, at considerable expense yes, to avoid both discharges during storms and the fines that rightly SHOULD be levied when a flawed system that could be upgraded to compliance is failing and polluted waterways result, with both environmental and human activity impacts. Obviously Trump\u2019s admin trying to punish SF for being SF is a side issue and we haven\u2019t seen the last of that effort, but removing teeth from environmental enforcement regimes without seriously considering unintended impacts downstream is not great governance either. +2 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () Matt says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281703) (March 11, 2025, 8:15 am at 8:15 am) March 11, 2025, 8:15 am at 8:15 am Hi, I am familiar with wastewater treatment plant operations (but not a member of the SFPUC team). For a wastewater treatment plant, there is an expectation to treat certain products out of the influent in order to comply with its NPDES permit. Different plants have different methods for treatment, but they all generally get to a similar place. I really don\u2019t believe it would be onerous for the EPA to make a list of specific effluent standards for this facility.The real problem is the city replacing its combined sewer system with a segregated stormwater and sanitary system. Climate change will bring more extreme wet weather events and that system was not designed to handle those, so there will likely be more of these discharge events and eventually that will EPA list of effluent requirements will show up and SF won\u2019t be able to handle it. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () mealy says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1282792) (March 12, 2025, 9:13 pm at 9:13 pm) March 12, 2025, 9:13 pm at 9:13 pm The point is the ruling is greater in scope than \u201cthis facility\u201d and \u201ceffluent\u201d right? You may be right about the overall capacity vs redesign issue, but capacity increases of 50-100% would stop many incidents in the meanwhile from escalating. It\u2019s not infeasible, whereas changing from our current system to a totally new system may be exactly that under current conditions political and budgetary. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () mealy says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281153) (March 10, 2025, 11:20 am at 11:20 am) March 10, 2025, 11:20 am at 11:20 am And think about it, this is _just_ for sewage treatment leaks of effluent and doesn\u2019t even get into all the wonderful forever chemicals, microplastics, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and pesticides, etc. We are drowning ourselves in all kinds of toxic crap that we don\u2019t care to bother trying to keep out of our food web, and we can\u2019t even agree how to regulate faeces now, the proverbial namesake of the cautionary environmental tale \u2018everyone poops\u2019. It\u2019s going to be a sh!t world we leave behind for our kids. +3 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () Spin says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281359) (March 10, 2025, 7:14 pm at 7:14 pm) March 10, 2025, 7:14 pm at 7:14 pm Lawyer here\u2026and:(1) the Biden administration and its epa was really, really out to lunch. It was clear that this was not going to be a win. But they for ego/stupidity/ etc kept going, rather than reaching an agreement. With the new trump administration incoming (which as the article states originally weaponized these general clauses) there was no way they could just sit back and let trump impose billions in penalties. Once again we were screwed by a really dumb adminstration \u2014 biden\u2019s. (2) the homeless case was similar, but there it was the homeless advocacy groups. They pushed too far, and really hamstrung west coast cities, It was easy to see where it was going \u2013 an 8-1 ass kicking.. But the homeless advocates have as much political since as the people who advocate for \u201cdefund the police\u201d or \u201cpaying for sex change operation of those in prisons and immigration detention\u201d or everyone using LatinX and long discussions by everyone about their pronouns. We (the democrats) will keep losing when a self-righteous, show how superior they are, progressive set gives the right wing all the ammo they need. +3 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () mealy says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281415) (March 10, 2025, 8:44 pm at 8:44 pm) March 10, 2025, 8:44 pm at 8:44 pm \u201cOnce again we were screwed by a really dumb adminstration \u2014 biden\u2019s.\u201d -As long as you don\u2019t look at the price of groceries, eggs, gasoline, the stock market, etc\u2026 absolutely Biden was the dumbest guy ever. I don\u2019t think he even considered capitulating to Russia and destroying American GDP in his first 2 months. Senility maybe. +1 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply (A person in a blue shirt and striped tie stands outdoors in front of a tree, looking at the camera.) Joe Eskenazi says: Article author (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281380) (March 10, 2025, 7:45 pm at 7:45 pm) March 10, 2025, 7:45 pm at 7:45 pm Sir or madam \u2014 Separate and apart from your reasoning, the Grants Pass decision was 6-3 along ideological lines. JE 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () Spin says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281383) (March 10, 2025, 7:52 pm at 7:52 pm) March 10, 2025, 7:52 pm at 7:52 pm You are right. Sotomayer\u2019s dissent was jointed by Kagan and Jackson. Still was a very predictable ass kicking\u2026and perhaps the only time in the last several years. I have actually agreed with the conservatives on an issue. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () Janice Coat says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281207) (March 10, 2025, 2:20 pm at 2:20 pm) March 10, 2025, 2:20 pm at 2:20 pm Thank you San Francisco. Always telling us what to do. But not giving a s&@!$ about what you do to us +2 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () CARLOS SPINOZA says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281084) (March 10, 2025, 7:34 am at 7:34 am) March 10, 2025, 7:34 am at 7:34 am We actually have a San Francisco \u201cDepartment of Environment\u201d with a \u201cmission\u201d to enhance the quality of life for all San Franciscans!Funded to the tune of $30 million.Even more performative posturing from a city that specializes in it. +2 -1 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () Firesign 4 evr says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281395) (March 10, 2025, 8:02 pm at 8:02 pm) March 10, 2025, 8:02 pm at 8:02 pm I\u2019d be curious to know more about the pursuit of this case by the City Attorney.\u2014\u201cSan Francisco is on a roll. Last year we handed Justice Neil Gorsuch the scalpel he needed to lacerate legal rulings preventing the rousting and criminal prosecution of homeless people who have nowhere else to go. And, now, we\u2019ve done the same, even more proactively, on behalf of environmental villains. City Attorney David Chiu has been the most aggressive elected official in San Francisco regarding Trump\u2019s authoritarian and antidemocratic moves. But he\u2019s also lobbed these two fat pitches to Trump\u2019s Supreme Court.\u201d 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () mealy says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1282793) (March 12, 2025, 9:20 pm at 9:20 pm) March 12, 2025, 9:20 pm at 9:20 pm Chiu is corrupt by any standard. Giving Breed a free pass to violate the Sunshine ordinance, he\u2019s been the backroom player in getting her the job in the first place. Now he\u2019s our SF City Attorney, ignoring the huge pot of boiling frogs to attend to a few well placed developers. If, as Chris Daly postulated, Bevan Dufty were a complete P.A.B. (sic), our esteemed corruption chasing lawyer Mr. Chiu would be a 5-ever-Bee. He has no interest in politics now that he has corrupting power without the voting intervals. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () mathew says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281343) (March 10, 2025, 7:06 pm at 7:06 pm) March 10, 2025, 7:06 pm at 7:06 pm So long as we have a combined sewage system, we\u2019ll have raw sewage flowing to the bay and the ocean during large storms. Period. A \u201ccombined sewage\u201d system: All rainwater gets mixed in with raw sewage. This is an extremely difficult and expensive system to size. Ostensibly this is to handle pollutants on the roads (ie from cars leaking oil, spewing rubber and brake dust, decomposition of asphalt, etc). Two problems: 1. This in effect is another market failure in favor of cars: The cost of their pollution is borne by the city as a whole in over-sizing the sewer infrastructure to handle storms, instead of the more regular sewage. 2. The water that comes from the streets and off roofs is generally not in need of the same treatment as sewage (and vice versa). So the combined sewer has to both deal with all the plastic, grit and other road debris, and the raw sewage, for all of it mixed together. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () Silly says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281714) (March 11, 2025, 8:29 am at 8:29 am) March 11, 2025, 8:29 am at 8:29 am Poor thing is afraid of cars, aww. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () mealy says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281525) (March 11, 2025, 2:08 am at 2:08 am) March 11, 2025, 2:08 am at 2:08 am Wrong. Period. They can build holding stages. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () Thirsty Stork says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281308) (March 10, 2025, 5:49 pm at 5:49 pm) March 10, 2025, 5:49 pm at 5:49 pm Sounds like offshore SF isn\u2019t someplace to be for the foreseeable. Unless you\u2019re in a boat, of course. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () Bill M says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1281244) (March 10, 2025, 3:27 pm at 3:27 pm) March 10, 2025, 3:27 pm at 3:27 pm This particular issue seems to be about regulating the water quality at the discharge area. At Ocean Beach, the currents and tides help move and dilute the problem fast \u2013 way better than say, the waters of Mission Creek. When we get big rains (like the river due this week) the combined sewer system allows raw sewage / stormwater mixture to flow through a screen on the outfall pipes. SFPUC call this Primary Treatment discharge. I\u2019d say it\u2019s not safe for anyone or anything to swim in. Hopefully, next time, the two agencies can come to an agreement on upgrades and stay away from the courts \u2013 and rulings like this that may weaken good regulations. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply () mealy says: (https://missionlocal.org/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#comment-1282794) (March 12, 2025, 9:22 pm at 9:22 pm) March 12, 2025, 9:22 pm at 9:22 pm \u201cAt Ocean Beach, the currents and tides help move and dilute the problem fast\u201d That\u2019s not even true, it billows out at tidal shift and deposits right on OB. 0 0 votes. Sign in to vote Reply Expand comments Leave a comment Please keep your comments short and civil. Do not leave multiple comments under multiple names on one article. We will zap comments that fail to adhere to these short and easy-to-follow rules. (/2025/03/weaponized-turds-san-franciscos-strange-and-terrible-victory-over-the-epa/#respond) Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. 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Alright, fair enough: But what about turds? What about turds \u2026 floating offshore?\u00a0Are there Republican floating turds or Democratic floating turds? You\u2019re not going to believe this, but one could argue that, yes, there are. San Francisco, in fact, literally made a federal case out of this. And, lo and behold, we won!\u00a0Last week, San Francisco bested the Environmental Protection Agency in a case that worked its way all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. The city prevailed via a counterintuitive 5-4 grouping; Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberals,\u00a0meaning that, for whatever reason, all the male justices favored San Francisco and all the female ones did not.As you\u2019d imagine regarding a regulatory case, there were a lot of ins, lot of outs, lot of what-have-yous. But, in the end, it all came down to floating turds. As in: The great heap of turds that San Francisco\u2019s antiquated combined sewer system ejects offshore when overwhelmed with stormwater. That\u2019s a sticky situation, but it gets worse: The city claims these turds were politically weaponized,\u00a0because there really is a distinction between Republican and Democratic turds.\u00a0You may recall the 2019 incident in which President Donald Trump rage-tweeted about homeless people\u2019s excrement and drug paraphernalia washing into the bay,\u00a0and a lapdog at the EPA followed through by citing San Francisco for pollution. This, it seems, was the germ of the strange and terrible lawsuit in which San Francisco vanquished the EPA,\u00a0with a who\u2019s who of polluters lined up behind the city, and a who\u2019s who of environmental groups lined up against it.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI would bet that most San Franciscans don\u2019t enjoy having untreated shit in their water,\u201d says Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who authored a resolution last year urging the city to avoid handing the Supreme Court a cudgel to further batter the Clean Water Act. Her resolution passed\u00a0but went unheeded.\u00a0So, here we are: \u201cIt makes me ashamed,\u201d Melgar continued. \u201cWe\u2019re sooooooooo progressive.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0But there was nothing progressive about the fines the city was racking up: San Francisco\u2019s Supreme Court win negates proposed EPA penalties in the hundreds of millions of dollars and mandatory sewer system upgrades that would cost billions and billions. These are untenable directives and, for whatever reason, the city and President Joe Biden\u2019s EPA could not come to a mutual agreement to avoid involving the Trump Supreme Court.\u00a0Heck, that\u2019s unfortunate: Dave Owen, a professor specializing in environmental and water law at University of California Law, San Francisco, likened entrusting the corrupted and activist high court with an environmental matter to \u201cbringing in the mafia to resolve a neighborhood dispute.\u201d\u00a0It is, truly, a shame that the city and EPA could not stave off this eventuality. And now the Supreme Court has made us an offer we can\u2019t refuse. Perhaps fittingly, considering the subject matter, nobody\u2019s hands are clean.\u00a0As a result of the city\u2019s victory, several paragraphs will be stricken from the treatise-sized permits governing its wastewater plants. At issue were broad, general clauses that, prior to Trump\u2019s Twitter saber-rattling, had largely gone unenforced. Among them:\u00a0Neither the treatment nor the discharge of pollutants shall create pollution, contamination, or nuisance as defined by California Water Code Section 13050.The broad clauses, like this, that San Francisco\u2019s successful suit has invalidated are often included in the permits overseeing mining operations or chemical plants. While, God willing, we know most of what\u2019s coming out of the city\u2019s sewer pipes, that\u2019s not the case with regards to washing acres of earth into rivers in a mountaintop mining operation or discharging byproducts from an industrial plant.\u00a0Broad clauses, environmental attorneys say, are a \u201cbackstop\u201d against unforeseen water pollution. \u201cAnd now that tool has been taken away,\u201d says Nick Torrey, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in North Carolina. \u201cThis is going to make it much more difficult to enforce water-quality standards.\u201dPrior to this ruling, if an unanticipated environmental hazard was created by a mine or chemical plant, the EPA could quickly swoop in and mandate them to stop. But now that\u2019s in doubt: If the specific substance isn\u2019t noted in the permit, that power is no longer there. So, what\u2019s going to happen? The EPA will have to make the permitting process more onerous on the front end, analyze every possible negative outcome, and get that into the permit. This would be a huge time-suck and time, of course, is money.\u00a0Or, the EPA could simply wash its hands of this kind of strenuous regulation and, as a result, do a crappier job of protecting the environment. Considering Trump\u2019s push to gut the agency, this is hardly implausible.\u00a0\u201cLook at the list of who filed the amicus briefs for the city,\u201d says Torrey. Among them are the National Mining Association, National Association of Home Builders, and public wastewater and stormwater agencies. \u201cIt\u2019s a laundry list of all the polluting industry trade groups. They all benefit from this.\u201d\u00a0San Francisco is on a roll. Last year we handed Justice Neil Gorsuch the scalpel he needed to lacerate legal rulings preventing the rousting and criminal prosecution of homeless people who have nowhere else to go. And, now, we\u2019ve done the same, even more proactively, on behalf of environmental villains. City Attorney David Chiu has been the most aggressive elected official in San Francisco regarding Trump\u2019s authoritarian and anti-democratic moves. But he\u2019s also lobbed these two fat pitches to Trump\u2019s Supreme Court.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But you know what? It could be worse. Owen, the San Francisco law professor and water expert, worried last year that the Supreme Court could use the San Francisco case to eviscerate the Clean Water Act and mortally wound the EPA. While both have been weakened, neither has been undone.\u00a0In this decision, Owen did not see the breadcrumbs,\u00a0\u201cor sometimes whole loaves,\u201d this court has sprinkled throughout its prior rulings to clue in polluting Hansels and Gretels on the path to further undoing any and all environmental regulations.\u00a0\u00a0It also warrants mentioning that, by an 8-1 ruling with only Gorsuch dissenting, the Supreme Court denied one of San Francisco\u2019s major arguments.In a nutshell, San Francisco called for quantifiable limitations on its effluent;\u00a0stuff you can measure. This, environmentalists argued, would do away with \u201cnarrative\u201d criteria: stuff you can\u2019t necessarily measure and may just see. That could be as simple as no visible turds or toilet paper, please.\u00a0The city has stated, explicitly, that it did not wish to do away with narrative criteria. But the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling found that the city\u2019s argument would\u2019ve done just that: \u201cSan Francisco\u2019s interpretation would \u2026 invalidate widely accepted narrative permit provisions \u2026\u201d reads Justice Samuel Alito\u2019s decision. \u201cIt is telling that the City\u2019s interpretation would lead to \u2026 drastic consequences that the City is unwilling to embrace.\u201dSo, the outcome of this particular case was limited. But not because the city was measured but, rather, because San Francisco\u2019s argument was too extreme for the Trump Supreme Court.\u00a0\u201cIf you have an argument against the EPA that\u2019s so bad you can\u2019t get Justice Alito on your side, that is saying something,\u201d sums up Owen. \u201cI think it\u2019s pretty clear the Supreme Court understood the city was asking to get rid of narrative standards and rejected that. If the city wants to say they didn\u2019t want to? That\u2019s pretty rich.\u201d\u00a0In the end, the consequences of this fight will depend on where you stand; the ramifications of a wealthy city\u2019s actions will be felt by the less fortunate, elsewhere. Water, after all, flows downstream. 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