Treatment plants make the bay safer to swim in and less smelly than it was when Jackie McCort was growing up in the East Bay four decades ago. We would roll up the windows and hold our noses when we crossed the bay bridges, says McCort, a Sierra Club staffer who works on bay issues. The bay stank. But even this cleaner, healthier bay is just a sickly shadow, its advocates say, of the mighty estuary it was 150 years ago. The bay s commercial fisheries have collapsed.
Pollutants continue to pour into it from agricultural runoffs and industrial discharges.
It is invaded by non-native plants and animals and some of its native species are endangered. Unsafe concentrations of mercury and other toxic substances in bay fish make it unsafe for adults to eat more than two a month. Pregnant women and children under the age of 6 should eat no more than one fish a month. The battles playing themselves out now between state and federal agencies, environmentalists and water users over how to more comprehensively restore the bay will affect all Californians for generations to come. Each time a delta smelt or winter-run salmon is listed as endangered or threatened, water supplies are cut to farms, businesses and homes to increase the flow through the delta to the bay.