This is satire, right?
“the city has a sewer system that runs effectively, keeping debris from reaching the Bay or the Pacific Ocean”.
As one who grew up in a family that constructed municipal water and sewer and stormwater works
You are correct
There is no filtration of that which runs down streets and into gutters
It goes to rivers and oceans in rain
And often intermingles with sewerage since rainwater infiltrates sanitary sewer during downpours causing it to overflow into storm water systems
Like when folks see a manhole lid bubbling over...
That’s toilet and dishwater mixed with rainwater running over
Plus sewer treatment plants can’t handle max flow in sanitary trunk lines and have to divert most to river or bay
It’s just how it is
In a typical costly example of hypocrisy municipalities today often require business owner parking lots to have detention ponds and weirs with traps and settling tanks for runoff
But not at govt parking lots or govt or public pavement
Like they do everything ...
Force us to yet they don’t comply
It’s a knee slapper alright. Infected needles, human feces... and they probably want to recycle waste water for human consumption to expand the cane toad habitat or something like that.
SF Mayor IS WRONG! There is direct run-off from SF to the BAY!
Old Storm Sewers go into the bay .... runoff from much of the property surrounding the bay ends up directly in it.
I KNOW.... I am a Civil Engineer who spent a year in the 90s in SF
“At this point, what difference does it make?”
No we actually do. It’s called a “combined sewer system”, which means that most of the time, what goes into the storm drains does not flow to the ocean/bay, but instead into the sewage treatment facility, and then into the ocean. But that’s only the case when there’s not significant rain, and probably a lot of the stuff on the streets just sits there until there’s significant rain.
Sure, waste water from toilets, sinks, showers is treated however it is very rare that storm water is treated.
I think the mayor well knows that the President isn’t referring to the sewer system, but the storm drain system, which are two entirely different things. He also knows that all the used needles and bum squeezins are being washed down the storm drains that flow directly into the bay.