<p>State officials allowed one of California's largest polluters to increase toxic discharges into San Francisco Bay shortly after the company donated $70,500 to Gov. Gray Davis, a Mercury News investigation has found.</p>
<p>The decision by a key state water board in June 2000 came just four months after the board had refused to relax the pollution permit at Tosco's Avon refinery east of Martinez -- and after the company had tried unsuccessfully to get the rules eased for seven years.</p>